


Someone Else

by obeyingthemuse



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Even nameless side characters, Gen, I love all DA characters & I mean EVERYONE, Misunderstandings, Modern Character in Thedas, No romance but possible slow-burn found family, Not-really-reborn-SI!Carver
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23723560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obeyingthemuse/pseuds/obeyingthemuse
Summary: Canon takes a brick in the face by the name of Carver Hawke.Or: The “modern character in Thedas” trope done aliiiittledifferently. Maker have mercy on us all.Or: I can’t find a fic where the transmigrated modern character in Thedas actuallymassively changescanon from DAO to DAI, so I write it myself.
Comments: 27
Kudos: 95





	1. Black Sheep

**Author's Note:**

> Carver is an unreliable narrator, as he only shares what he notices and deems important for us to know. We won’t get all that is happening around him, or all of what he’s thinking. Prepare to read between the lines, hehe.
> 
> The changes will be slow at first, so bear with me. At the end of the day, my intention is to see how thoroughly someone can shatter canon while still making the timeline easy to follow. Enjoy the ride!

One day, Garrett accidentally broke a plate. 

He shrugged with a helpless smile. “Bethany suddenly grabbed my ankle. She surprised me.”

Leandra scolded her son. “Bethany is my baby girl, don’t you blame her.” The young mother picked up her only daughter and held her against her chest. The distracted toddler, already forgetting the brief exchange, giggled and hugged her mother back, playing with Leandra’s hair. Bethany’s twin sat on the ground with his small wooden toy and silently watched the girls of the Hawke family disappear to the next room to check on the laundry. 

Garrett scuffed his foot with a mutter. “Mother coddles her too much.”

Garrett was six years old and learning. He had gone from being the only mage child to not even the only mage, and was coming to the realisation that sharing his parents’ attention was a reality he’d have to commit to for longer than he realised. For the rest of his life, in fact. “Forever” was a shapeless impression difficult to grasp for a six-year-old. 

Carver’s existence didn’t help any. When Malcolm returned home from trading in the market, he scooped up the youngest male addition to the family and bounced him on his knee. 

“You know why I named you Carver, my boy?” That was a term previously exclusive to Garrett. “I named you after the brave and open-minded man who saved my life. I know you’ll grow up to be just like him.” 

The Hawke children would quickly forget these events when they’d grow older. Bethany would view her family as good as the goodness shown to her when she was little, even as Bethany couldn’t place why she expected to be treated well. Garrett would find meaning in his magic, an attribute in which Malcolm saw parallels between his own talent as a young mage with Garrett’s even greater potential, drawing the Hawke patriarch’s attention while Garrett couldn’t explain why he was pleased by it, only that it was expected. Carver would be shaped by his present more than his past - a grey space in his memory where nothing stood out except everyone else in his family. He would forget the significance of his name, except that he was meant to be brave and open-minded even though he inwardly didn’t feel deserving of being called either. 

Such was the natural progression of youth. 

If only Carver wasn’t fated to be the black sheep of the family. 

Because in the first month of his life, Carver had rolled over in his sleep as a babe and breathed his last, before someone else breathed in. Someone else had their own name, their own family, their own forgettable childhood. Someone else was always the first to step forward and apologise in the family, and hated it, but hated tension in the family more. Someone else desired to be their own person without the shackles of expectation - to be the “kind one,” and then to be nothing - and believed that if given the chance at a second life, a fraction more of their potential would at least shine through. 

Someone else was miserable to be reduced to the youngest son of another person’s family. 

Carver was a quiet boy, always watching and observing. He was, in fact, the only one to do so, and thus no one in the Hawke family shared the note of their neighbours that Carver was Quiet For His Age. Or the note of the neighbourhood children that Carver was Weird. Or the note of the local Chantry sisters that Carver was unusually Dedicated to Learning of the Maker. 

When Carver displayed interest in the Templars’ lifestyle, however, the Hawke family noticed and intervened. 

“I’ll support whatever path you take,” Malcolm Hawke said, “except this one.” 

Carver was more than just Carver. “Who did you name me after, father?”

“Ser Maurevar Carver,” Malcolm returned without missing a beat. “Someone you aren’t ready to be yet. You’re still young, my boy.”

So Carver took up the way of the wooden sword and practiced it in Lothering’s backyard, where Malcolm didn’t bring his mage children to practice and where everyone else’s children noted that Carver was Not Good Enough to be a Templar, and laughed. The Chantry sisters told Carver that the Maker had a path for everyone, and his could equally be serving his family in a capacity yet unseen, or setting an example for them by still pursuing the Templar order when he grew older. The local Knight-Captain knew that Carver was More Hard-Working than Half the Bloody Recruits and promised him a place in the order if the time came, but explicitly stated that it wasn’t a man’s place to get between a father’s decision and a son, and that Carver would ultimately have to work out his own way to the order before he’d be able to claim it. 

Carver didn’t mind. He’d look back on his earliest years as a Hawke and tell himself he didn’t mind, compared to what followed. 

The prettiest girl of Lothering decided to claim him as her friend. 

Pretty, in the sense of her face. For everything else reminded Carver too strongly of a family who always thought they were right, and even then they still loved their own unconditionally. Peaches only shared the former similarity. Peaches was an inescapable existence that Carver could grow to tolerate like one could come to accept a rock in their shoe. 

“I’m Carver’s friend.”

Malcolm and Leandra Hawke smiled and nodded at the girl at the front door, and shot Carver a raised brow paired with the smile tilting and gaining meaning. Already, due to Peaches’ face, people whose opinions Carver cared about were misunderstanding. 

“You’re a very pretty girl, my dear,” Leandra greeted and bent down to Peaches’ height. “Why are you here for Carver?” 

“We’re supposed to play in the woods together,” Peaches replied, unaware of herself, of the misunderstandings that rippled in her wake. “Carver was late. The boys are wondering where he is.” 

Carver intervened. “I don’t play with you.” He swung his wooden sword in the town’s outskirts, and the rest of the kids would watch or jab at him with a stick to evoke a reaction, like he was a stray cat. Peaches included. When she did, the boys were more motivated to imitate her, and pushed Carver around. 

If Carver were to claim a friend out of anyone who would have been in primary school where he was from, it would be the children who were already promised to the Templars. They regularly studied in the abbey - not just the Chant of Light, but the history of the Chantry at its best and worst, and what it meant to be the same Chantry’s firm hand in the realm of magic and demons. Those children teased and played like the children they were, but they were also aware of their life’s solemn purpose and, due to their forcibly maturing hearts, never stepped too far in their jests. Indeed, the worst infraction they could commit against the Chantry Mother was to fall asleep during lessons. Carver and them often crossed paths between the Chantry and the Templar salles, and had developed an amiability over time. Before Malcolm and Leandra had banned Carver from the Templar grounds, Carver had sparred with them when he could. 

Leandra scolded him, observing only his words. “Carver!” She turned to Peaches. “My son is stubborn, as all boys are. You two have fun.” 

Carver didn’t want to train in the woods - not now that Peaches had deemed herself his escort, and that Malcolm and Leandra would think poorly of him if he further expressed disinterest in Peaches. As if he had an obligation to any pretty girl they saw. Yet he left with Peaches anyway, then ditched her with her usual clique of girls. He spent the rest of the day in the Chantry. 

Garrett laughed. “I heard from father that you ran away from a girl.” 

Bethany wasn’t laughing. “I heard you made her cry.” 

“Peaches is used to getting her way,” Carver pointed out. “She didn’t even notice I had left her side until an hour into chatting with the girls.”

“Father had to pause our magic lessons to apologise to Peaches’ father,” Bethany shared. She was conveying the perceived gravity of Carver’s mistake. 

“From what I heard of her short memory, Peaches will get over it,” Garrett reasoned. “Just don’t make any more girls cry, brother.” Garrett was telling Carver not to disrupt the mage children’s time with their father. 

Carver thought of the Templars, of their lessons, and of the quiet words Malcolm and Leandra would impart with him when the amiable Garrett would lose his temper on Carver without warning, or when the usually brave Bethany would hold tightly to the family and confess she was scared of the dark. The Hawke mages _felt_ strongly. They feared, hated, and _loved_ strongly. Which was why Leandra and Carver had to step forward first and be the balance, to strongly love in return. 

A firm love. 

“I’m going to avoid Peaches anyway,” Carver said. “Your magic lessons should be safe.” They were important. 

Unfortunately, Peaches grew determined. 

She employed the voluntary assistance of the boys who sought her opinion, and cast a net over Lothering for Carver. Media entertainment didn’t exist in Thedas, and Peaches liked observing drama. She liked involving herself in the circles of secrets that children created to feel special - even if it was as inconsequential as a secret hiding place - and she was used to others feeding her whatever she asked for. Carver’s behaviour was a defiance against the accepted rule that Peaches always got her way, and the girl didn’t want her peers to catch on to the rule’s fragility. So the boys sought to locate and deliver Carver to Peaches, and Carver made a secret hiding place out of the Chantry. Even should he be found, the Chantry’s solemn interior would discourage the wildness out of his pursuers. 

Carver became unusually pious. 

It should have been expected with how much time he spent in the Chantry, but he still surprised himself, how faithful he was. Carver could credit the effectiveness of repeated exposure, but he also knew about dialogue trees, talent points, and save files. The world should have been small. Containable, like it could fit in a box. Yet his faith grew, pointing out that his apathy to the possible existence of a higher power hadn’t stopped it from delivering him into a second life. Carver allowed himself to call it the Maker. It was an inadequate label for something that was beyond Carver’s reach yet continuously affecting him in the most intimate level, and it wasn’t exactly the creator the Chantry described. But a verse from the Chant of Light would sometimes leap out to Carver and offer comfort, and he’d allow his heart to soften and hear the voice of the one who had given him a second chance even when he hadn’t deserved it. As possibly the only like of his kind, Carver felt less lonely. 

Spending all his time in the Chantry became easier. 

Peaches eventually snapped. 

“I’m here for Carver,” she said, after showing up at the Hawke’s front door first thing in the morning, not giving Carver the chance to sneak past. “He’s _supposed_ to—” The rest of Peaches’ declaration died when the rest of the door swung open to reveal Garrett. 

Likewise, the older Hawke brother was startled by Peaches. She had fair hair like cornsilk as opposed to the Hawke family’s black and blacker heads, and every strand of her hair picked up with the wind when it blew. 

“I’m Garrett,” he said on auto-pilot. “I don’t know about Carver, but I can do it.” 

“I haven’t said anything.” Peaches was pleasantly surprised. 

It didn’t matter. Garrett could do everything better than Carver. It wasn’t a matter of pride, just fact. “I don’t feel like studying today, father. May I play?” He declared this to Malcolm, who was catching up to the door, and farther back, to Carver and Bethany who were peeking around the corner. 

Carver was pleased. He could finally spend time with Bethany, his born twin and most thoughtful sibling. In a way, she could have been the other half of someone else before they had become Carver, the youngest Hawke son who didn’t have to be the “kind one.” Bethany also wanted to play with the less troublesome girls of the town, and Carver would happily join them. 

And so it was. 

Because Carver was no longer the most pleasant-looking boy that Peaches knew, which was unexpected. Garrett had indeed been the most handsome baby to be born in Lothering, but Carver hadn’t translated Peaches’ obsessiveness to a crush that Peaches herself hadn’t understood until she was ten, and Garrett was ten, and Peaches was chasing Garrett around with less boy followers. Bethany’s girl friends informed Carver as much, particularly of his symmetrical looks. They had apparently been too shy to pursue him, and by now were already interested in someone else or themselves. Carver didn’t mind and let Bethany make her own friends while he spent his time subdued in the local abbey, telling himself that it would have been strange for an old soul to befriend youngsters anyway. 

Peaches had trained them well. 

Sometimes, Carver wished he could hate this girl, who dragged her fingers through everyone’s life - even unintentionally - and left permanent evidence of her existence behind. 

* * *

;

* * *

The dynamics of their generation didn’t change for the next eight years. 

Garrett swept up those around him with his charisma, easily drawing out the best of others, even Peaches. He also wielded a stick better than anyone else, which eventually became a staff - to few other’s knowledge - and soon Peaches’ hold on the rules of the world dissolved under Garrett’s:

Namely, that Garrett could do anything the kids knew that Carver could do, and better. 

That Garrett was as kind as Bethany, but more mischievous. 

Which meant that Garrett was more fun than both of them combined. 

Besides, Garrett was also the Hawke child who spent the most time out with people. Bethany couldn’t keep up with Garrett’s fast-paced studying of magic - because of course Garrett was a genius - and thus stayed home with Malcolm for more of the day than Garrett did. Carver was always in the Chantry, drawn to the Templar sparring ground but never stepping foot in it. People still liked Bethany - adored her, with her dimpled smile and genuine laughter - but oddly enough, people couldn’t come to like Carver. He was persistently Weird. Swinging a sword alone and talking to himself kind of weird. Whenever someone proposed that he was suffering from an inferiority complex, he’d be so shocked he’d snap at them with the bluster of the North Wind. 

“I’m sure your brother is bad at something,” a Chantry sister pointed out. “Let me think….”

“Don’t.” Carver twitched. “Leave my brother alone.” 

He’d respond similarly if the subject were Bethany, but no one tried to think ill of her, so they never heard Carver defend her. To them, he could only ever seem to talk about his older brother to whom he couldn’t compare. Then Carver would return to swinging his sword, or kneeling before a carved figure of Andraste, and people would draw their own conclusions. 

* * *

;

* * *

Of course, eight years meant eight birthdays. Then the dynamics changed, starting with the Hawke family. 

“You can’t,” Garrett declared. 

Carver wanted to join the king’s army. Training started as early as age fifteen, and Carver was on the cusp of it. 

“You can’t go where I can’t follow,” Garrett persisted. “I’m your older brother. I have to watch over you.”

“I don’t need you to,” Carver returned. “When have you ever—“

“You’re always hiding somewhere, reading a book or swinging a sword! When would I have the opportunity—!” 

“You’d have to go very far,” Bethany stepped in, eyes wide. “The king’s army trains near Denerim, and that touches the northern coast.”

 _I’m scared of the dark,_ Bethany used to whisper, when she and Carver used to share a room. _If I’m too scared, will I become a demon? Will you stop me?_

 _You don’t have to be scared,_ Carver had promised. _Not while I’m around._

Carver nodded to Bethany. “You’ll have Garrett.”

This displeased their parents for some reason. “Carver, this isn’t the time for your unfounded sense of inferiority!” Their voices overlapped with Malcolm’s staccato and Leandra’s sordino:

“Your _siblings_ are _mages,_ and they _haven’t_ completed their Harrowing yet. _Family_ needs to _stick_ _together_.” 

“My baby boy in Denerim? Ohhh…!”

Carver held his mother’s hands and looked to his father. “I can’t swing a sword outside the Templar grounds or meditate in the Chantry anymore. I have to _do_ something or I’ll go crazy.” 

His family wouldn’t understand exactly what he was confessing. 

No one in Thedas would. 

Malcolm slumped, thinking about his stern words to his son years ago, and another Carver. He turned to his wife. “I’m sorry, Leandra, but I can’t accept the Templar order here just yet….”

She whipped her head. “So the alternative is to send our son to the north!? Look at him, Malcolm, he has Amell-blue eyes! Why do you think we’ve run all this way to the back-end of Ferelden!?” 

“I want to properly learn swordsmanship,” Carver interrupted. 

Leandra played with her hands within the cradle of Carver’s palms. He couldn’t feel guilty. “If this were Kirkwall, I could find someone easily….” 

Malcolm’s hand fell on his wife’s. “That close to the royal palace, I’d be surprised if Carver wasn’t safe.” 

Garrett and Bethany slowly caught up. 

“Father!” Garrett gaped. “What happened to family!?”

Malcolm winced, his tone softening. “My boy, this is more— when you’re older—“ He scrubbed his face and sighed. “Carver wishes to be free.” 

Garrett exploded. “ _And I can’t!?_ ” 

Leandra’s eyes widened. “Are you discontent with something, Garrett?” 

“No, but that’s not the point!” Garrett spluttered. “Carver doesn’t _have_ to live far away, so why would he!?” 

The Hawke mages _felt_ strongly. 

Carver stepped in before Garrett could catch his breath. “Thank you, father, mother.”

Garrett turned on him, ambushed. “Brother, why would you— Do you not—love us?“

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” Carver continued, “with the main trade caravan.” Else he didn’t think he’d be able to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good is not soft, and old baby boy is socially awkward :V
> 
> Please kudos and comment!


	2. Just A Soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly warning that I don’t know anything military beyond what’s in movies and video games :D

Carver trained himself to the ground for the next two years. The commanding officers there quickly picked up the same observation as the Templars of Lothering - that Carver was More Hard-Working than Half the Bloody Recruits. He was also remarkably eloquent and learned. 

“Carver Hawke, was it?” Loghain Mac Tir folded back a page of the bound stack in his hands. Everyone, including Loghain, was standing at parade rest. 

Loghain had bags under his eyes after two years of a long and fruitless search for the beloved King Maric lost to sea. The royal court was already calling for Loghain to cease his efforts and conclude the king deceased - because everyone was physically tired, emotionally exhausted, had _long given up_ \- so the eye bags were looking to be permanent. But Loghain didn’t want to give up. In fact in the two years Carver had trained in the king’s army, Loghain had aged more in a month of debate with the court than in two years of simultaneously commanding an army and combing a sea for a body. Additionally, the Lieutenant-Commander - second only to the king, the Head-Commander - didn’t have to regularly see the rank-and-file face-to-face, but he did so anyway. Loghain was a straightforward man who never forgot where he had come from. 

Everyone in the king’s army deeply respected him. 

“You have any experience in requisitions?”

“Requisitions, ser?” Carver understood numbers, but not how to quantify the force of an army, and the potatoes to fuel it. 

“If not, you will now.” Loghain looked up and met his eyes. “Answer to Ser Cauthrien tomorrow on the sixth bell. You shall serve alongside her quartermaster.” 

Carver eventually caught on to the intentions of his superiors. He was better at numbers than most farm-raised recruits, he wrote with a clear voice, and most importantly, he was _driven_ to succeed where he could. Cauthrien pushed him through different missions and widely-varied roles at a punishing pace. Carver could just be starting to adjust to his new responsibilities, then be handed another assignment before his head could stop spinning. 

The soldiers around Carver received promotions as time passed, while Carver himself was only ever moved laterally. He was a convenient filler - and one that rarely complained. Carver realised too late that it was possible he was simple-minded. 

He didn’t mind. 

He told himself he didn’t, compared to what he expected ahead of him. He had come to deeply value the figures in his life that could no longer be reconciled with flat, fictional characters in a story. Carver just needed to be with the king’s army when they marched to Ostagar. 

Then Cauthrien summoned him to her office. The soldiers who had surpassed Carver were also present, and smirking at him. 

“Teyrn Loghain regrets that he can’t be here,” Cauthrien shared. “The crowning of our new king demands the attendance of all council members and the royal court through the full ceremony. Teyrn Loghain has therefore assigned me the task of swearing you in to Maric’s Shield in his stead.” 

“Congratulations, kid,” one of the soldiers chuckled. 

Carver stared, blindsided. 

Cauthrien didn’t delay. “Carver Hawke of Lothering, you are now promoted to Knight and submitted into Maric’s Shield, the elite force of the king’s army. From now on, you answer only to myself, Teyrn Loghain, or the king.” 

* * *

;

* * *

Walking out of that room was an out-of-body experience. 

Carver’s senior commented on it. “You must be tough as nails, kid.”

Carver ignored him, but his senior slung an arm over his shoulder and trapped Carver in a conversation. 

“Thought he looked familiar,” another soldier said. 

A laugh. “We must have passed by him at least once on our way to Maric’s Shield. Kid’s been in all kinds of roles.”

“You’re young,” said the first, tightening his arm. “Got an explanation for that?”

Carver understood what they meant. Everyone in Maric’s Shield was weathered and grey. Before his promotion into the elite force, Carver had served as equals with - or superiors over - men and women who still remembered the last war, and no matter the world, no one liked seeing a young face in high ranks. The town kids of Lothering had treated Carver like a stray cat, but the soldiers of Denerim had treated him like less than dirt - just short of stepping out of line. Carver had been hazed since his first role change in the king’s army, and he didn’t expect his time to improve now that he was in Loghain’s personal unit. 

Carver shrugged. “I go only where my merit takes me.” He couldn’t give any less a reason for others to find fault in him. 

He received a slap on the back for his words. “Ha! Like I said, tough!” 

The other members of Maric’s Shield crowded around without slowing their pace. In the upper floors of the army fortress, they didn’t have to worry about blocking the halls as they walked. The senior officers were more curious about Carver in the fashion of another world, where male soldiers would be curious about a female addition. Carver was an oddity, but in time acceptable. 

“No one gets here easily,” someone to Carver’s right said. “Not even one of noble blood.” 

“Princess here is noble-blooded,” teased the soldier with an arm around Carver. 

Princess was bearded, tall, and built like a mountain. His bicep was the size of Carver’s head. 

“You can relax here, you know,” Princess shared. “Everyone in Maric’s Shield knows you can’t get to where we are without working hard. Teyrn Loghain handpicks each one of us, and he’s as fair as you can find.” 

“Hear, hear,” the others agreed. 

Carver‘s brows furrowed, bewildered. “He handpicks us?” 

“We don’t hesitate in our duties, we can cooperate with others when necessary, and we’re good at what we do,” Princess ticked off. “Can’t tell what Teyrn Loghain sees in you, with how busy he is, but I hear you were moved laterally for several months straight and no one heard a frustrated peep from you.”

“Maybe the kid’s a masochist,” a soldier suggested, and everyone laughed. 

Carver’s tense shoulders eased. He wasn’t being hazed, and that was good enough for him. 

“Say, kid, what’s your name?”

“Carver Hawke.”

More laughter. “No, your _real_ name.” 

Military life. No one went by their born name the instant they were called something else. At one point, people could only identify each other by their nicknames, because their real names were never used except on paper or by soldiers clearly under-ranked to them. It was a pain for Carver when he handled paperwork for the army. If “Mumble” wanted more paper and soap, then Carver would have to update their provider and have the supplies delivered to “Ser Carac’s” barracks. 

Not to speak of the military organisation of Ferelden’s army. Anything structured in Ferelden was no older than the rebellion against Usurper King Meghren, and Ferelden’s tradition of personal freedom engendered a laissez-faire attitude that hindered further development. Ranks were in Carver’s opinion oversimplified, while positions like “quartermaster” were mere job descriptions independent of one’s rank. 

From the lowest rank to the highest, there were the Squires, Pages, Soldiers, Sergeants, Knights, Captains, then finally Commanders. Squires and Pages were sometimes the same person. Knights included both former squires who were finally knighted by their mentors, and commoners whom a superior officer recognised, so skill wasn’t consistent within that rank. _Everyone_ above the Pages was called Ser, except commoners who weren’t knighted and Sergeants who led patrols below a size of sixty men. Outside the ranks, members of an army were _all_ called soldiers. 

Then there were the basic units of Ferelden might. A “legion” was a bann, arl, or teyrn’s personal forces. An “army” was the military power of a noble and every lesser noble in their domain. The “king’s army” was a legion specific to the crown, but in times of war, it could expand to reference the military might of every noble under the crown. 

It made Carver want to tear out his hair. 

Carver’s lips thinned. “I wasn’t called anything.”

“Maferath’s trousers you weren’t,” the others insisted. 

Carver agreed. “Nothing I can repeat, anyway.”

There was a glum pause. 

Then a slap to the back. “We’ll find you a new nickname, kid, one perfectly regrettable.”

“Or simple,” someone suggested. “How about ‘Hawke?’”

“No!” Carver immediately rejected. His voice flattened into a whine. “Why not just ‘kid?’”

“No!” Princess followed. “You have to suffer the same as the rest of us!” 

* * *

;

* * *

Carver didn’t see a difference in his burden of duties before and after joining Maric’s Shield. He was still shuffled through various roles, except now it was just Cauthrien and Loghain assigning them, as opposed to Cauthrien’s small army of secretaries. One month, Carver could be hunting bandits down the western highway; the next, Carver could be sitting at a desk and slaving through papers. 

He did, however, make a few acquaintances. 

More accurately, Maric’s Shield was forcibly and oftenly exposed to each other in their overlapping assignments, that they couldn’t help but learn more about each other than they wanted. 

Nails had once dated Satin’s sister. Maker’s Breath could pass gas louder than a war horn. Speechless could talk about anything, any time, without ceasing. 

Carver felt out of place with the generational gap between him and his “peers,” but the informal conduct that permeated the interactions of Maric’s Shield wore at his discomfort like sandpaper. They weren’t his friends, but granted, Carver wasn’t particularly close with anyone. If he were to put it kindly, Maric’s Shield was the closest of those he knew to the idea of “friends” - slightly above Lothering’s Chantry sisters, Templars, and Templar initiates. Carver might not grasp his peers’ jokes or relate with all their stories, but at the end of the day, everyone was odd. They resembled a collection of uncles, aunts, and nephews rather than a family, which was more than Carver had expected from his previous exposure to the king’s army. 

Carver’s tireless days blended together, becoming months, becoming seasons. Then Satin teased him about a girl. 

“I don’t have one,” Carver denied. 

“Oh?” The others joined in, leaning over to Carver and Satin’s piles of papers. It was raining, and everyone’s desks were crowded together. Only bad weather could reliably see paperwork processed. “Then who’s Bethany?”

“ _What_.” 

A few of Maric’s Shield jumped. No one had heard Carver’s temper _crack_ before. 

Carver suddenly rose from his desk, and Satin surrendered a letter without prompting. 

Carver accepted it stiffly. Scanned the letter with stormy eyes. Then pivoted out of the room without another word. 

Those who had witnessed this hastily followed Carver at a distance, already amused. They watched him locate the sergeant who had recently returned from the southwest. The latter stood tall, wearing armour, weapons, and weathered skin all twice more seasoned than Carver’s - while Carver looked up at the sergeant with the gangly limbs and ill-fitting armour of a teenager a few steps short of adulthood. 

“Who’re you?” the sergeant grunted. 

Carver spoke coolly, not allowing his appearance to dominate the atmosphere. “Ser Carver, Knight of Maric’s Shield.” 

The sergeant hastily straightened and crossed his chest in the Ferelden salute, flustered. “Ser!” 

“What is this?” Carver held up Bethany’s letter between them. 

The sergeant stared. “Ser?” 

“This is mail,” Carver continued. “From _four years_ ago.” 

“Aye, ser, Lothering.” The sergeant lowered his arms. “Any farther south, and you hit the Wilds. Nothing important there.”

Carver stiffened. “Sergeant, remind me the purpose of patrolling.” 

“To protect the highways, ser.”

“Why are the highways important?”

“Because of trade.”

“And?”

“…Mail?”

“Communication.” Carver’s ice-blue gaze hardened. “An army is only as good as its information. Answer to Ser Charis tomorrow and receive your new patrol routes from him. Dismissed.”

“S-Ser!” The sergeant morosely saluted. 

Carver hunted down the rest of Ferelden’s backed-up mail. He found fifty letters from Bethany. She had spoken for the family to him in her writings, until Malcolm had apparently fallen ill and passed away the year Carver had left. Then Bethany’s letters had turned inward - soft little things that could have been Bethany merely writing to herself the way she used to murmur to Carver at night, like he was her reflection outside a mirror. Bethany had written about whatever had sprouted to mind:

Of Peaches’ fruitless pursuit of Garrett, and not of how Garrett was closing himself off under a veneer of wit. 

Of Bethany’s passing jobs when she wanted to buy something for herself, because Leandra was occupied with grief. 

Of how Bethany missed Carver. 

He thought that his letters and the money he had been sending weren’t being answered. Medieval mail was slow, but Carver knew when he was being rebuffed. Now, however, he realised that the state of Ferelden’s mail south of Drakon River was still recovering from the Rebellion. After all, there was a difference between kicking out an Orlesian ruler, and driving out all Orlesian influence, and King Meghren hadn’t ruled effectively to begin with. Ferelden was a patchwork the Orlesian king had abandoned halfway. Even the Orlesian Circle of Magi had been able to take and occupy Kinloch Hold without notice _eight years_ after the Orlesians had been pushed out at the Battle of River Dane, until Loghain had learned of the tower and liberated it, and Maric had swept out the darkspawn drawn into the conflict. 

Because recovering from an empire hadn’t been enough - oh no, a wave of _darkspawn_ had had to kick in as well. 

_Maker’s breath_. 

It didn’t help that the sergeant hadn’t spoken falsely concerning Lothering’s significance, or lack thereof. By a certain apostate’s own description of the village, Lothering was the awkwardly isolated sort of settlement where for years, an apostate could draw Templars into the Wilds and kill them, and Lothering’s Templars would still fail to successfully alert the Circle or call for backup. 

“I hear you transferred Sergeant Kylar without Ser Charis’s permission, Ser Carver.” 

Carver saluted Cauthrien where she ambushed him. “Sergeant Kylar underperformed in his duty for the past four years, without notice by Ser Charis. I gave them both the opportunity to move forward from their blunder.” 

Cauthrien crossed her arms. 

Carver remained saluting. 

“Teyrn Loghain will hear of this.” 

“When he does,” Carver surrendered, “please forward this to him as well.” He lowered his arms and extended a bound stack of papers to her with both hands. 

* * *

;

* * *

Carver was made to wait in anticipation for three days. 

Apparently drawing an audience with the king took time. 

“This isn’t a real blight.” Loghain shook his head. “It’s too soon, and these reports are too infrequent. The scale of the darkspawn attacks is ultimately inconsequential.”

“Not for the peasantry,” Cailan pointed out. His diadem glinted across his forehead, thin and regal. “You agree that we should move to protect them - otherwise, you wouldn’t have brought this issue to me.” 

“Yes, but we need not send the entirety of your army,” Loghain intoned. “Arl Eamon possesses the ideal means and men to address this issue. Let him sweep his backyard. This is an opportunity for us to reflect on the southernmost lands’ lack of bannorn, and grant the peasantry the right to elect a long-awaited landlord. Ferelden can afford more structure close to the Wilds.”

Cailan straightened. “And how would Arl Eamon know the appropriate procedure for erasing darkspawn influence on the surface? What orders could give him this knowledge?” 

Loghain hesitated. 

Cailan pressed. “What are we currently doing at the moment until I can locate such orders?” 

“The only fault of the reports was in their delayed arrival.” This, Loghain could answer. “Your army is already improving communications.” His eyes flicked to Carver. 

Cailan turned. 

Carver straightened where he stood, the analysis he had written sitting open in Loghain’s hands. When Carver had combed through four years of mail from southern Ferelden and noted concerning reports in the most recent year, he hadn’t expected Cauthrien to actually share his paperwork with Loghain, who had then insisted that Carver accompany him to meet with the king. 

Loghain recognised that between he who commanded the king’s forces, Cauthrien who served as his right hand, and Carver who changed desks every new moon, Carver himself had compiled the reports and analysed them for inconsistencies, and thus knew the contents more thoroughly than Cauthrien or Loghain could from scanning his final report. Carver was to attend the meeting as the source of any detail his superiors wished to hear more about. Otherwise, he just had to stand still and look pretty. 

Then Cailan peered at Carver. “I understand you compiled the reports yourself, ser knight.” 

Carver nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“According to your grasp of reconnaissance, what is the recommended next step?” 

Carver glanced at Loghain, who nodded. “I wasn’t present at the sightings, Your Majesty, but the reports don’t contradict each other. The darkspawn are behaving in invasive patterns. Protocol dictates we treat this as a hostile invasion.” 

“Secure the highways, establish communication with the enemy, and evacuate the people?” Cailan recited. “What of protocol against mindless anarchists?”

“Cailan,” Loghain warned. 

“We need experts!” Cailan insisted. “We need the input of the Grey Wardens and to crush this darkspawn invasion before it can gain momentum, just as my father did!” 

“We don’t need to send your entire army!” Loghain repeated. “Let the Wardens dally south with Arl Eamon - _you_ are not crossing the continent!”

Loghain had known Cailan since the latter had been in his nappies. 

They both showed it. 

“I will hear from Warden-Commander Duncan,” Cailan declared. “Then I will decide how to move my army.”

Duncan was summoned from the Grey Warden Compound in Denerim. He bowed to the king. 

“This is a blight.” 

Duncan looked like he hadn’t been sleeping well for a year, though he wore exhaustion better than Loghain, with tighter skin and a clearer gaze. He didn’t wait for Cailan to relieve him of his bow; Duncan straightened up on his own, then stood not at rest or attention, but as equals with the king. As a Warden, he had no obligations to heads of state. His willingness to answer when called, however - and without a fuss - reflected well on him as a man of reason. 

Carver doubted that anyone in the room noticed it. 

Loghain dropped Carver’s report on the nearest table. “A _blight!_ ” he repeated. 

“How do you know?” Cailan’s voice lifted. 

Duncan was cool as milk. “The Wardens have their ways. My vows stay my tongue, but I can assure Your Majesty that the darkspawn threat is real.” 

Loghain spluttered. “Scattered sightings of darkspawn do not constitute a surface _war_.” 

“Uncle,” Cailan curbed. “The Wardens grasp the danger of darkspawn better than anyone. If Warden-Commander Duncan identifies this invasion as a blight, then we are compelled to treat it as such.” 

“And how would the Warden know?” Loghain’s eyes narrowed at Duncan. “He hasn’t glanced once at the reports since stepping in here. Do the Grey Wardens run their own information networks in their host nations, independent of local governance? Do the Wardens maintain cross-border correspondence during times of peace as well as blights?” 

Duncan acknowledged Loghain. “I grew suspicious of a darkspawn threat two months ago, and forwarded my concerns to Montsimmard. They have since confirmed the presence of an archdemon in Ferelden.” 

“Montsimmard,” Loghain repeated. 

“It is the location of the Grey Warden headquarters in Orlais.” 

“It is also the location of Orlais’ Circle of Magi.” The same organisation that had occupied Kinloch Hold, until Loghain had to personally drive them out. It was also no secret that Duncan had served the Orlesian order of Grey Wardens until King Maric had overturned King Arland’s banishment of the Wardens from Ferelden. Loghain frowned. “What of the archdemon?”

Duncan opened his mouth. 

“Not you.” Loghain turned. 

Carver blinked. Everyone’s eyes were on him. 

He cleared his throat. “The reports are insubstantial,” he trod carefully. “However, highway patrolmen rarely deviate far from their path. We have learned just this month of a Dalish clan in the Brecilian outskirts that has possibly been camping there for at least a year.”

Cailan nodded. “Without orders to investigate the less populated areas south of Drakon River, our soldiers cannot learn more of what possibly lies in Ferelden. The archdemon could be lurking in the Korcari Wilds!” 

“Along with witches,” Loghain muttered. “Until our scouts gain a firmer grasp of the situation in the south, we cannot send an army marching across the continent without expecting repercussions. Need I remind you, Your Majesty, the kingdom’s capital sits by the sea.” 

“We have amicable relations with the Free Marches,” Cailan dismissed. “We haven’t been at war with a foreign power since you and my father drove the Orlesians out. This is the perfect opportunity for my army and I to address an event that the world hasn’t witnessed since the age of griffons! I’ve decided - the king and his army shall march south to Ostagar and eradicate this evil from Ferelden!” 

“The _king,_ ” Loghain curtly added, “will also be accompanied by his banners. Starting with Teyrn Cousland. If you want this to be a war, then treat it as such.”

“Uncle!”

“This is court,” Loghain returned. “One must observe etiquette. Your advice has been heard, Warden-Commander.”

Duncan bowed. 

“He’s coming as well!” Cailan pointed. “The Warden-Commander from now on has my ear equal to a council member. Everyone is dismissed!”

They were kicked out of the throne room. 

Loghain didn’t speak to Carver until they were back in the army barracks. 

“Has the king any more _mail_ from the past four years?” Loghain turned. 

Carver’s lips thinned. This wasn’t his day. “I’ve repaired the flow of mail to the capital, Teyrn. The darkspawn reports were the only articles that I judged required immediate attention.” 

“Answer the question, knight.” 

Carver inwardly sighed. He extended a letter sealed with the Redcliffe heraldry. “This was sent to the king through the common mail. Apparently, Arl Eamon hadn’t found it important enough to send with a runner like the rest of his missives to the capital. It equates to a passing thought.”

“I’ll reserve my opinions til after reading it.” Loghain took the letter. The wax was unbroken, if a tad pudgier than expected from an arl’s careful hand. “Hmm.” Loghain glanced up at Carver. 

Carver’s face was stone. 

Loghain broke the seal and scanned the letter. Carver knew the gist of what it said. 

Queen Anora hadn’t borne a child in the decade since she and Cailan had wedded. Cailan was still young enough to consider a more fitting wife. 

“That’s a letter for the king, Teyrn,” Carver said quietly. 

Loghain folded the letter. “So it is,” he firmly agreed. 

Queen Anora’s possibly barren womb was already a long-standing rumour, but it was different seeing the unconfidence reflected in the hand of an arl, even if Arl Eamon was Cailan’s uncle by blood. The second blow came with the fact that Eamon’s Orlesian wife had delivered him a child _after_ a decade of marriage. 

Loghain would have to reseal the letter by melting the wax a little. “You didn’t read this, knight.” 

“I understand.” 

* * *

;

* * *

Their discretion was moot. 

Somehow, with word of a blight rode rumours of Cailan and Empress Celene. The king obviously acknowledged a southern darkspawn threat great enough to summon the military power of not just a few Ferelden nobles, but of the kingdom’s three big names - Theirin, Cousland, and Guerrin. The “king’s army” had now grown from a legion to an official army. However, Ferelden’s Grey Wardens - the keys to success - were far from numerous enough to address a so-called blight, while the bulk of the Wardens’ continental forces sat west in Orlais. 

Cailan made no secret of his sudden correspondence with Empress Celene. It would be most convenient for Cailan if he didn’t have to share a glorious victory with chevaliers and if Orlais merely used their forces to clear a path out of Montsimmard for their Wardens. Thus, Cailan requested that the empress do her part in addressing the blight, and no more. 

Others overanalyzed his message. If Cailan was willing to reach out to an Orlesian ruler for help with the blight, it was a wonder he hadn’t wielded the first tool in politics.

Marriage. 

Since Celene’s premature crowning as empress at the tender age of sixteen, Celene had survived by baiting favourable alliances with her unclaimed hand. The big names of Orlais were proof of her ability to transform stiff families into steadfast allies despite not yet having married into them - even now into her twenty-sixth year. It was to the common people’s understanding that if Cailan wanted cooperation from Celene, he would have to at least consider setting aside his barren queen and reaching out to the unmarried empress. 

Fortunately, the common folk were not given reason to believe that their opinions were reflected in Ferelden’s nobility, who had the power to breathe life into suspicions. Especially as it didn’t help that Celene’s offer of sending legions of chevaliers to Ferelden anyway could be taken as proof that she had found something pleasing of Cailan, like a marriage prospect. 

Half of the nobility secretly and warily watched Celene’s responses. Orlais had used the cover of blights to conquer other nations before, from the Anderfels to the Free Marches and Nevarra inbetween, and time had not erased either side’s impressions of each other. Vocal Orlesian nobles like Celene’s cousin Gaspard de Chalons still viewed Ferelden as a territory that had been misled into believing itself independent, while any Ferelden noble would readily repel annexation. When Cailan and his still-gathering army easily won their first clash with darkspawn in Ostagar, the southern threat shrank from Ferelden nobles’ minds in the shadow of a possible western threat. 

In the background of wild rumours and the sudden mobilisation of Ferelden forces, Carver rode ahead of Duncan to the Coastlands. There had been initial resistance from Loghain, when he had learned of Carver’s plans while the king’s army was still preparing to leave for Ostagar. 

“Someone needs to sit in the capital while the king and his army are gone,” Loghain had said, “and you have studied under Ser Cauthrien long enough.” 

Carver was better served in logistics than leadership, however - or so he had claimed. Arl Howe’s neglect of the roads over the winter had made muddy slopes of Amaranthine’s route for Ostagar, and Carver couldn’t trust Ser Charis and Sergeant Kylar with the vital necks of the western highway. Carver would oversee them himself - for a little while, then return to the capital. 

And then march south to be with the king’s army, as was his duty. 

Loghain hadn’t been impressed with the last addition, but Cauthrien had pointed out that she was still leaving her army of secretaries behind in Denerim. The capital could afford to stand for a month or two without a member of Maric’s Shield present. 

So while the king’s army moved and fought in the south, Carver rode westward to Amaranthine first, to check on the Howe legion’s progress, then to Highever, to check on the Cousland legion’s. Ostensibly. 

Castle Cousland was breezy, dry, and almost too trusting. 

“Val Royeaux?” Oriana echoed. 

“Can it be done?” Carver asked tensely. 

The wife of Bryce Cousland’s heir flipped the sealed letter in her grip. Her hands were paled by a recent life indoors, but Oriana’s Antivan blood still faintly bronzed her skin. 

The lady pursed her lips, eyes sharp. “My family are mere merchants. We don’t involve ourselves in the post business.” 

“You won’t read this when I leave the room,” Carver stated. “Even so, the kingdom will be grateful for your family’s efforts. Off the record.”

“I’ll think about it and find you later.” 

“Soon,” Carver pressed. The empress of Orlais needed to understand that spreading rumours of hers and Cailan’s marriage would be as detrimental for the empress as it would be for Ferelden. 

After all, Cailan was an uncomplicated man. He would not grasp the transient nature of rumours like Celene and her handmaiden Briala would, and Cailan was too honourable to allow himself or Celene to disrespect a deal - even one made unknowingly. Celene was fortunate to have complicated people like Queen Anora and Teyrn Loghain standing between the king and gossip. 

The letter was a soup of lies, but Celene was Orlesian. 

Oriana later found Carver, her face pale but set firm. “I’ll have my father and his contacts deliver this safely,” she swore, “if you promise me one thing.” 

Carver debated the costs. A possible civil war, for a debt to a minor lady. He reluctantly nodded. 

“See my husband returns home safely.”

Carver winced. 

“Promise,” Oriana sternly pressed. 

Oriana had already skimmed the letter, and couldn’t know how much of it was not to be taken seriously, how much of it was a bluff, and how much of it was blackmail. Antivan merchants understood the power of misinformation and thus never shared the contents of their packages - not before contracting a price from their employers, or receiving a better offer. Oriana’s protectiveness of her husband was a perfectly reliable price only matched by her vengeful wrath should her husband fall. 

Carver inwardly sighed. It was Oriana, or an Antivan who hadn’t married into the loyal, patriotic Couslands. Any other communication line to Orlais would be detected by wary and staunch Ferelden nobles like Loghain, whose suspicion of western influences had recently heightened. “It will be done.” 

Carver had to reshuffle his alphabet and reach for a different plan, which led him to hastily locating Bryce Cousland in the main hall of his castle. 

“I wasn’t expecting a soldier from the capital.” Bryce’s brows rose, but he welcomed Carver with a smile. “Is there an update from the king’s army, ser…?”

“Just a soldier,” Carver dismissed. He had to balance just the right amount of apathy, inflation, and brevity to persuade his target into a thought without actually thinking. Carver was already young-looking, and not easily mistaken for a member of Maric’s Shield. Now, he had to also aim for “harmless.” “Apologies for my sudden appearance, Teyrn Bryce, but the king expects timely attendance in times of war, and there is only so much a runner can do delivering messages. I passed the Howe legion leaving for the south while I was riding through the Coastlands, however I could not get into contact with Arl Rendon directly. It would not do for the Howe legion to arrive at Ostagar without their commanding officer, and it is commonly understood that you and the arl share a close friendship. Have you an explanation for Arl Rendon’s unknown location that I can deliver to the king?” 

Carver _had_ passed the Howe legion leaving for the south - by persuasion of the royal crest of the king’s army. No detours allowed. 

Bryce blinked. “Arl Rendon sent word to me that he and his soldiers would march to Castle Cousland before following my son south through our own, unmuddied roads. I didn’t receive an update that they would brave the western highway after all.” 

“The king’s army has a skeleton crew assisting travel through the highways,” Carver shared. “Amaranthine’s roads have long been confirmed acceptable for use.” 

“…It appears Arl Rendon and I have been misled.” Bryce paused, then remembered himself and smiled. “I apologise I can’t enlighten the king on Arl Rendon’s location.” 

“The king will understand.” Carver saluted and walked away. 

Now he had to stay - and avoid the Grey Warden about to visit - until Fergus Cousland’s departure. He couldn’t have Duncan correct the assumption that the nameless knight in Bryce’s castle was anything less than a knight of Maric’s Shield. 

Carver preferred misunderstandings by his own design. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The Dragon Age wiki can’t give me a reason why some Sers and nobles are addressed by their first name while others are by their last. It doesn’t seem to be determined by noble history, noble/military rank, or career experience. Thus for consistency, I’ve decided to use everyone’s first name, because I can accept replacing “Arl Howe” with “Arl Rendon” more than I can accept replacing “Teyrn Loghain” with “Teyrn Mac Tir.” It just doesn’t feel right. 
> 
> A/N II: Loghain is my favourite Dragon Age villain, so I hope to do him justice. That said, when I started researching Loghain’s timeline of villainy, I had to grab Eamon by the shoulders and shake him - because Alistair is age 25 and Connor is around age 10 in DAO. Which means Isolde hadn’t been able to deliver a child to Eamon until after a decade of being married. Then Eamon had the gall to write to Cailan that he should consider divorcing Anora because she hadn’t been able to produce a child within a decade of marriage. 
> 
> Really, Eamon? I get that Cailan needs an heir, but in DAO, he’s only 25 - plenty younger than Eamon, who’s at least old enough to be Cailan’s father, and had only been able to father a son in the last decade. 
> 
> Anora’s a b*tch, but she has my respect for putting up with this crap like a b*tch. You go girl. 
> 
> Meanwhile in the background, Loghain had Eamon poisoned - supposedly to delay Eamon from coming to Ostagar and welcoming the Orlesian Wardens and chevaliers into Ferelden. It’s not like Loghain isn’t also a father. The Mac Tir’s are stone-cold mf’s and they have my _respect_.


	3. No One

“Don’t you have more messages to run?” 

Carver placidly marched with the Cousland legion. “Not unless Lady Oriana grants me leave to Lake Calenhad or Orzammar.” 

Fergus Cousland blinked. “My wife…?”

Carver suddenly drew his sword and cut down an arrow before Fergus’s chest. 

“ _Archers!_ ” the Cousland legion shouted. 

Everyone hastily formed up to shield each other and address the company of Howe soldiers that had ambushed them. Fergus rose his shield and barreled through the Howes’ vanguard, before drawing his sword and cutting two limbs off a man in one stroke. The Cousland heir roared - shocked and betrayed - and the Howe legion flinched. 

“ _Halt!_ ” 

A few Howe soldiers froze, unsure how to proceed without a Howe to direct them, but the majority of the troops pushed forward in their task to slaughter the legion of Highever. Fergus and his soldiers, however, had received enough warning of the ambush, and the Howe legion’s plan was crumbling at first contact. 

Fergus bashed another soldier to the ground, then stomped on the enemy’s head once. Their head exploded like a dropped egg. 

“Traitors - I said halt, or _die!_ ” 

The remaining Howe soldiers dropped their weapons and held their hands up. 

Fergus caught his breath, swivelling his head. “Where is your commander?” Panic rose in his voice. “Where is Arl Rendon!?” 

“C-Castle Cousland by now,” a Howe soldier bravely answered. 

Fergus grabbed them. “And my family!? My son!?” 

“Arl Rendon ordered the deaths of all Couslands, milord….” 

Fergus pivoted. 

Carver wiped his sword on a Howe soldier. No one had left the ambush unchallenged. “Lord Fergus.”

The lord rounded on him. “Arrest me later, knight!”

“Return home,” Carver evenly continued, but inwardly shivered. Had Rendon Howe not been an ambitious snake, Carver would have been forced to try arresting the enraged Fergus and entire Cousland legion for desertion - on his own. “Arl Rendon broke the law first by turning his legion on his fellow countrymen. If he has grown bold enough to target a big name, I have reason to fear he has also set his sights on his next most powerful neighbour: the Kendells of Denerim. Secure your ancestral home first - then divide your legion with the Kendells legion and the king's army left in the capital.” 

“Are you done?” Fergus pressed. 

“You have time to listen,” Carver curtly replied. “Arl Rendon’s main legion is already headed south for Ostagar, led by his son Lord Thomas.” With persuasion. “It appears Arl Rendon has sent a leaderless portion of the rest of his soldiers to ambush you, leaving Arl Rendon with only a squad to cooperate with him in a castle siege. If your father wasn’t expecting Arl Rendon and his soldiers, Teyrn Bryce could have kept the gates closed against them until their intentions were revealed. I believe that Lady Oriana and your son reside in the living quarters of Castle Cousland, placing them far from the gates.” 

“My mother and sister are shieldmaidens,” Fergus slowed. “They could have armed themselves, located Oriana and Oren….” 

“Go see Castle Cousland secured.” Carver breathed. “Recall your people and their families back home to Highever until the full extent of Arl Rendon’s plan can be perceived. I must ride to Denerim.” 

“Take one of our horses.” Fergus composed himself and removed a chain from his neck. “And my crest - my people will know you speak for me when you send them to Highever. The Howes will _pay_.” 

Carver accepted the horse of one of the legion’s fallen and conspicuously rode away, then veered off the path for the Chasind who had secretly witnessed the ambush. In another timeline, the Chasind would have carried Fergus - the only survivor of the slaughter disguised as a bandit attack - away from the wreckage and nursed him through his wounds and a terrible fever, before Fergus would ride to Denerim to learn that the blight had come and gone. Now the Chasind, the original locals of Ferelden, warily eyed Carver with his Marcher-blue gaze as he descended from his horse, approached them - and with a straight face, asked them about a honey-scented flower that had a red bud. 

The two parties exchanged tense and bewildered words. Eventually, the Chasind realised that Carver was just Too Stupid to be a Threat. 

“Ah, the Mabari Madness.” A Chasind nodded. “It’s an ol’ mabari disease that don’ matter to men.”

“It matters to me,” Carver insisted. 

A scoff. “You don’ understand, lowlander - the Madness is a sickness for mabari, but a death sentence for humans. Besides, it’s been gone for hun’reds of years.”

“Luckily, I don’t intend the cure for a human.” Carver turned cross. It was a long day. “Just share the recipe with me, _please._ I’ll hunt down the ingredients myself, starting with the flower.” 

The Chasind eventually shared the cure’s recipe in exchange for the most valuable possession on Carver, with his castle-forged armour, sword, and crests of influential meaning: his horse. 

Carver grumbled and traded it over. He’d walk to the nearest town and rent a horse from there, then relay until he was back in Denerim before certain noblemen could violate the capital. 

He passed by more wild rumours as he did, and tried not to let them stick in his mind like filth picked up by a ball of fur. 

Word was that Teyrn Bryce had allowed Arl Rendon into his home to clarify a misunderstanding. The next morning, Castle Cousland had caught on fire, Bryce and his wife Eleanor had been found slain in the castle’s pantry, and the next generations of the Cousland line had gone missing. 

Word was also that Fergus had set fire to the castle himself and killed his own parents to make teyrnirs of his new family, while the youngest of Bryce’s children had run away to be with an older man. 

Either way, Highever was in disarray, and there was no word on Rendon Howe’s location. 

Carver rode hard. 

* * *

;

* * *

“You want me to _what?_ ” 

“Arrest Arl Rendon for desertion when sighted,” Carver repeated. “I have more highways to supervise.”

“All the way to Ostagar?” Ser Rhiannon, the oldest knight left in Denerim, cocked a brow, then scrubbed her weathered face. “It should be _you_ in this chair, not me. I can handle logistics, Ser Carver. I cannot presume to grasp how Teyrn Loghain wants the capital to be run while Ferelden’s most important figures are all down south.” 

“Delegate.”

“Just not to Lord Vaughan?” Rhiannon intoned. “While Arl Urien marches with the king, his son is Lord of Denerim. Help me understand why you’re opposed to the residual king’s army cooperating with the residual Kendells legion to keep the peace in the capital.” 

“I have no issue with the Kendells legion, just Lord Vaughan.” 

“Does he deliver mail late?” Rhiannon deadpanned. “The others are starting to call you Postboy.” 

“Better than what they used to call me.” 

Rhiannon’s lips thinned regretfully. 

Carver shrugged. “Delegate, Ser Rhiannon. Others listen to you. I have to assess the southern highways.”

“You couldn’t be convinced to leave Denerim, before. Now you can’t be convinced to stay? Will you at least give me a believable reason why Arl Rendon would disobey the king’s call to Ostagar?”

“For whatever reason could compel Arl Rendon to wipe out half of the Couslands.” 

Rhiannon paled. “Then…the rumours….”

“Lord Fergus assigned me his crest to send loyal servants of his family back to Highever. For their safety.” 

Rhiannon’s face reddened. “Arl Rendon would dare turn his gaze here!?” 

“Don’t allow suspicions to carry you away, Ser Rhiannon. Do your duty, and I will see to the rest.” 

“I…of course, Ser Carver.” She sighed. “We’re the same rank, but I guess this is the difference between the common soldier and a member of Maric’s Shield. I’ll have some of our soldiers protect the servants and families returning to Highever. Leave the king’s army here to me - the path to Ostagar is waiting.” 

Carver shed a little sympathy for Rhiannon. He wasn’t going to leave Denerim without stirring a last bit of ruckus first. 

When he found Denerim’s alienage, he flashed Fergus’s crest to the first elf in sight and demanded all Highever servants and their families leave for home by the end of the day. His abrupt command was welcomed _so excitedly,_ the local hahren had to intervene. 

“We cannot suspend two weddings at the drop of a hat!” Valendrian halted. 

“Are the couples engaged?” Carver manoeuvred. “They’d already be family to the Couslands’ servants. Their weddings can be moved to Highever.”

“What of my cousin, who _isn’t_ engaged to a Highever servant?” an elf in Carver’s face hotly demanded. “I can’t get married in Highever while my cousin weds alone in Denerim. What is a wedding without the presence of friends and family?” 

“You are engaged to a Highever citizen?” Carver addressed. “You are family to the citizen, and your cousin is your family. All of you may travel for Highever together.” 

The elf blinked as she followed Carver’s logic, before hesitantly clasping hands with two more elves, forming a trio of red-heads. “Shianni, Soris…?”

The shortest woman shrugged. “I haven’t seen the outside of Denerim in years.”

The only male smiled. “So long as Valora doesn’t mind. I want her to enjoy her wedding.” 

The first elf sighed. “All this because I’m engaged to the Highever-born Nelaros….” 

The elves that were crowded around Carver suddenly burst with vocal excitement. “He’s a dream come true!” “You can’t _not_ marry him!” “Go, Kallian - or _I_ will!” Laughter peppered the alienage. 

Carver exhaled. So long as the alienage didn’t turn into a mob. 

Valendrian touched the shoulders of the elves Kallian, Shianni, and Soris. “Collect your things and travel with young Nelaros to Highever, da’len - and tell Cyrion and young Valora’s family the same. Dareth shiral.” 

“Ma serannas,” the trio thanked in unison. 

“One more thing,” Carver delayed. The elves’ faces turned suspicious and unpleasant, before Carver handed Fergus’s chain to them. They blinked. “Tell others what I told you, and return this crest to Lord Fergus at Castle Cousland when you arrive. If you face resistance on your journey, summon a member of the king’s army and mention Ser Rhiannon.” 

* * *

;

* * *

Carver sold all the possessions he didn’t need for his trip, then purchased updated maps of the Brecilian Forest before rushing south for Clan Sabrae’s camp. He encountered a remote village stirred up by the presence of Dalish elves in their forest, and he stepped in to scare them with darkspawn more than nomads, and persuade them to call for the king’s army patrolling the highways for protection. If the war front in Ostagar didn’t pan out well, Ferelden could benefit from established communication and organisation in the remote village. Carver also extracted the location of elven ruins from the villagers before rushing in the direction of the site. 

The Sabrae clan abruptly drew their weapons at Carver as he barged into their camp, red-faced and panting. He hadn’t had to hike through forests in a lifetime - so to speak. At least, not while wearing and carrying all he owned. 

“Is this - huff - a Dalish clan?” 

“Leave, shem. We have no patience for trespassers - especially today.” 

Beyond the line of elven camp guards, Carver could see an elf moaning in his cot while a grey-haired elven woman ran glowing hands over his forehead. 

“Has your patient been feverish?” Carver bulldozed. “Delirious? Did he recently enter a dense, humid structure taken over by nature, old enough to attract transformative diseases?” Now he was just improvising. 

“Did you not hear us the first time, shemlen? Leave!”

“Hold.” 

The guards turned while the other camp-dwellers watched the exchange with their hands near hunting and crafts gear, just in case. The elderly woman tending to the bedridden elf beckoned Carver approach. He did, and twenty nocked arrows followed him. 

“You know of this sickness?” the woman asked. 

Carver kneeled by the unconscious patient’s side and nodded solemnly. “Yes - keeper? It is the blight. I have a tonic that will alleviate the symptoms, but the young elf in your care would do better with the Grey Wardens gathered in Ostagar.”

“I appreciate your brevity, human. How do I know you speak true?” 

Carver showed the Mabari Madness cure he had concocted ahead of time. “Your ward is already dying. If this tonic doesn’t improve his state by the end of the day, you may take my life as compensation.” 

She peered at him for a long breath. Eventually, she spoke. “You risk much for a stranger, and an elf. Who sent you?”

“This is no ploy,” Carver denied. “If you need an angle, then trust in the Wardens’ perpetual shortage of recruits.” 

“You serve the Wardens?” 

“We are…co-workers.” The keeper didn’t appear familiar with the term. “We happen to share the same purpose and place of work. If they lose, we all lose.” Carver watched the sick elf struggle to breathe. “How long ago did he contract the taint?” 

The keeper jerked her chin once, and the guards lowered their bows in unison. She explained the situation to Carver as he slowly fed the tonic to the patient, and she used magic to persuade the young elf’s body to recover with the mixture’s assistance. 

Apparently, a pair of Dalish youngsters had gone missing two days ago, and after nonstop searching, the clan had been able to find only one of their missing lying feverish and unconscious in an elven ruin, surrounded by corpses decayed to the bone and a four-legged mass of flesh and fur that could have been a bear once. The ill elf’s life was now hanging by a thread composed of the keeper Marethari’s magical prowess and the elf’s own insurmountable willpower. It was a miracle the elf hadn’t died before Carver arrived. With half of the clan still searching for the other missing elf, it was no wonder the traditionally neutral Dalish had greeted Carver’s sudden appearance with frazzled nerves and quick hostility. 

Carver grilled Keeper Marethari. How had the mutated bear smelled? Did anyone touch it? Were there surfaces that shared the same intrinsic strangeness as the bear? Marethari answered patiently, with quick responses from her clanmates around her when she needed clarification. She expected Carver to receive more accurate descriptions of the elven site when the search party would return that night. 

“Keep them separate from the rest of your clan,” Carver advised. “The bear and the strange mirror you describe potentially have the blight, and prolonged occupation of the same room as them may have endangered the search party. The greatest concern is darkspawn, as once-animated corpses aren’t an issue. With the bear dead, darkspawn won’t be attracted to its location, but I’m concerned about this mirror.”

“No artefact of our past is worth the safety of our present,” Marethari decided. “We are willing to shatter that mirror to pieces if it means protecting the rest of us. What advice have you, however, if Clan Sabrae turns out to have contracted the blight? Most of us have searched the ruin at least once.”

“You say the bear had no memorable scent,” Carver recalled. Smell was caused by particles of an object making contact with one’s sensors. A scentless darkspawn meant the amount of the blood it was emitting was insignificant, and most Thedosians were immune to anything short of actually ingesting or bathing in darkspawn blood. Otherwise, battling darkspawn would have resulted in more darkspawn with every blight. “These precautions might mean nothing. However, if we all contract the taint, I have enough tonic for three people, and a recipe to make more. That would buy your clan enough time to travel to Ostagar and request permission to join the Grey Wardens.” 

A sigh of relief rippled through the clan. 

Marethari minutely bowed her head in gratitude. “If none of us have a fever by the end of today, we will know the Creators have smiled on us.” 

It was a tense twelve hours marked with the return and quarantine of the search party, before the young, tainted elf’s eyes finally fluttered open. 

“Keeper Marethari…?” 

The elven woman tiredly smiled. “It appears we may all keep our lives, tonight.” 

* * *

;

* * *

Carver later woke to the sun already breaking through the trees and Clan Sabrae packing up to find a new home. The elves who had been warily watching him were gone. Carver wandered through the camp until he found the keeper quietly conversing with the elf who had been bedridden last Carver remembered. Marethari looked up when Carver approached. 

“Theron came through while you were asleep,” Marethari greeted. 

Carver sighed. “I wish you had woken me.” He would have wanted to check the patient’s condition. Regardless, Carver nodded once. “It’s good to see you up. You might have the strongest spirit in all of Thedas.” 

Wine-red eyes blinked slowly. “You are the human who saved my life.” The young elf inclined his head. “Ma serannas.” 

Carver nodded, then turned. “Keeper, I admit I wasn't supposed to dally in the forest this long. I’ll share you the tonic’s recipe, but I must leave posthaste.” 

“A moment,” Marethari stilled. “Knowledge is power, and I have questions. How did you know your tonic would work? I am a keeper of history, and I would have expected this tonic widespread if its effects were known.” 

Carver sighed. “It’s originally intended for mabari, but compared to them, elves have a longer and richer history of magic running in their veins. While the tonic does nothing to humans, I figured it could help the People.” 

“You brought us a tonic that was useless to you? …You were prepared to die the instant you stepped into our camp. I would have your name.” 

“I’m no one.”

“Now don’t give me that, da’len.” Marethari didn’t place her hands on her hips, but she did lift her chin, and Carver straightened. “You wandered into our camp and didn’t help Theron to lower our arrows, but to address someone in pain. The Dalish have a long memory, and Clan Sabrae would have a friend’s name.” 

“Keeper—“

“I’d have it now, if you’re in such a hurry.” 

Carver wasn’t used to direct attention, especially outside military context. Most everyone he encountered ignored him. “…Carver,” he mumbled. “Really, I’m no one.”

“Not to us, you aren’t.” Marethari touched the elbow of the young elf and nodded to Carver. “A few of our hunters carefully destroyed the mirror and returned to us. I now declare that Theron Mahariel will be the clan's halla breeder no longer, and shall travel with you, Carver, to Ostagar. With the Creators’ mercy, the Wardens will take Theron in.” 

Theron moved to Carver’s side, but Carver stopped him. “I believe your clan has a certain farewell planned for you. I will wait at the edge of camp.” 

Theron looked to Marethari, who paused in surprise at Carver’s decision, then nodded. “If Carver is willing to wait, then…yes, we would send you away properly, da’len.” 

Clan Sabrae was small and attached to each other. 

Carver stood at the edge of camp and watched the news spread through the clan with every elf assembling in two rows. Marethari eventually walked down the aisle of sorrowful faces and turned to face the other end, from where Theron tentatively stepped through to meet gazes with his clan-mates once more. Carver wasn’t entirely familiar with Dalish traditions, but the farewell seemed a subdued affair, similar to a lost soul’s boat drifting down the quiet corridor of Styx’s shores. No words were exchanged, but the elves each nodded to Theron meaningfully, and when the young elf reached Marethari, he was close to tears. 

It was rough to watch. 

Carver’s eyes flicked to the keeper’s First, who had been in the search party and was now biting her lip with sudden emotion. The clan had apparently reached a consensus regarding their missing member’s fate, and declared the young Tamlen dead on the same day Theron’s departure was announced. Not everyone had agreed with the decision, but they didn’t have the resources to keep searching for Tamlen, and it was prudently determined that it was time for a new forest space to call home. Carver had admittedly been keeping his distance from the First, Merrill, to prevent himself from speaking with someone he had already decided should be “Garrett’s friend,” and to avoid the likely danger of accidentally making the elf mage cry during the clan’s bluest hour. Merrill possessed a sweet face, and to paint it with tears would fill Carver with guilt appropriate for having kicked a puppy. 

It was too late for Carver to realise that he was socially awkward. 

He wordlessly turned when Theron reached him, unable to find a gesture that would lessen the pain of leaving one’s family and possibly dying in at least a year’s time. Thus Carver and Theron vanished silently, solemnly, into the forest together like raindrops tossed into the ocean. 

They eventually rented two horses from the remote village, then crossed Drakon River to ride the West Road for the Imperial Highway, a remnant of the Tevinter Empire and the only road to Ostagar. The villagers suspiciously eyed Theron, three of their own recognising the young elf as one of the Dalish who had pointed an arrow at them and demanded their leave. Theron didn’t shy from the attention and held his head up high, silent but not apologising for his character. Carver respected Theron’s strength to do so when he was quietly weeping just moments ago. The halla breeder accepted his horse calmly and mounted it as if it wasn’t his first time. He didn’t speak until the two of them were well down the West Road. 

“…Carver?” Theron’s voice was rough from crying and prolonged silence. “Why do we move west, instead of south through the Brecilian Passage? I understand bandits plague human roads, while the only dangers of the Passage are bears and wolves. The humans that trek the Passage also do so in tight groups and on a schedule, allowing for clean avoidance of them.”

Carver knew what Theron spoke of. The Brecilian Passage connected Denerim with Gwaren, Loghain’s domain, which was why the teyrn was able to rule Gwaren from the capital. Ever since Maric’s disappearance, however, Loghain had grown more occupied with northern affairs than ruling a territory that was already running well with minimal interference, and the traffic through the Passage correspondingly lessened. Still, Carver had to inwardly deadpan at Theron’s description. Bears and wolves were enough deterrent for normal people to travel the Passage, much less bandits. The Dalish must have had a higher floor for what constituted a threat. 

“I can’t make you fight the way to Ostagar,” Carver shared. Carver might have been swinging a sword since he was a child, but he couldn’t compare himself to the grey-haired veterans of the king’s army, the forest-frolicking Dalish, the Gwaren militia, or a seasoned Grey Warden. If they rode the Brecilian Passage, Carver knew who would end up fending off wildlife for the both of them. “You might feel fine now, but this is also your first time riding a horse’s saddle. You’ll feel sore starting tomorrow, and evasive of battle - not to speak of the taint still slowly running through you. Even if we rode down the Passage, we’d still have to eventually head west through the Southron Hills for Ostagar. If we take human highways, at least the king’s army will smoothen out our journey.”

“Your king’s army would help us that much?”

“Every able-bodied soldier is riding for Ostagar.” Carver’s lips quirked shallowly. “We aren’t the only ones seeking out the blight.” And the Imperial Highway leading to Ostagar began at one place. 

Lothering. 


	4. Postboy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In reference to Someone Else, should I use “themselves” or “themself” as a pronoun? Let me know what you guys think.
> 
> Also to TheReader994: Thanks, and no problem! I have Alistair at age 25 by the Fifth Blight, according to the DA wiki. This allowed me to conclude on Arl Eamon’s “pot and kettle” situation as you eloquently put it. 
> 
> One thing about writing, you end up searching topics that make you sound like a psychopathic divorcee with a murderous streak and a weakness for fine cheeses. You also do a lot of math for fictional birthdays and historical events.

Carver and Theron began to draw eyes as the West Road’s traffic thickened, and when they neared Lothering, Carver donned his helmet, not eager to be recognised by anyone from his hometown. Fortunately, while he and Theron were an odd sight together, no one bothered them. Carver levelled his chin with the ground, and Theron was unfazed by attention, allowing the armoured knight and Dalish elf to turn adequately forgettable with an air of belonging. 

They handed their horses off to a stablehand, before they headed towards the heart of Lothering where a river divided the wooden, old-fashioned half of town from the stone structures of the more modern side. Farmers populated the former while artisans dominated the latter, and all were united in their sense of harmless, unchecked freedom; thus Lothering was in truth too loose a place as to have a “centre,” save for where the local tavern and Chantry faced each other across the river. Carver was reluctant to cross the bridge for the tavern - where he would be more likely recognised - but he and Theron needed to eat, and Carver needed directions to the local sergeant. 

Turned out, the sergeant needed him more. 

“Postb–– Ser Carver?” Basket intercepted Carver questioning the bartender. “Word from Ser Rhiannon - came with a runner.”

Carver glanced back at Theron and confirmed the elf was safely occupied at a table with food, before facing the sergeant. Carver remembered serving under Basket once; the balding man hadn’t participated in the army’s hazing of Carver, but he hadn’t stopped it either. Basket didn’t appear to have a problem now playing messenger for Carver and the capital, so he was at least professional. 

Carver accepted the letter Basket had kept on him, and broke the seal to reveal Rhiannon’s tight, hasty writing. Carver wasn’t able to read a word before a civilian in the crowded tavern nudged into their space, consequently blocking the nearest light. 

“…Carver?”

Garrett stepped closer to him with wide eyes fixed on the slots of Carver’s helmet, as if the mage could discern one’s identity at will, and with only Carver’s muttered name to inspire a connection. Carver inwardly cursed at Garrett’s timing. Basket was no country Templar softened by an amicable relationship with a farmer’s boy. 

Carver was terse. “This isn’t a good time.”

“Four years of silence isn’t enough for you?” Garrett’s voice wavered with light sarcasm. “Maybe I should wait for the next blight and check on you then.”

Basket looked up. “This your brother?”

“Our father passed away,” Carver briskly shared. “Garrett is head of the household now.” Because that was the only reason Garrett was still in Lothering while most able men and women were moving for Ostagar. Desertion wasn’t taken lightly. 

Garrett’s chuckle was thin. “So you _did_ receive Bethany’s letters. Here I thought you couldn’t read.”

“Send her my love,” Carver decidedly slipped a money bag out, “and take this. Bring the family out to the Free Marches, see Uncle Gamlen.”

Garrett held the pouch with dazed disbelief, not knowing where to start with the wrongness in Carver’s actions. Carver could see the exact moment Garrett felt betrayed. “Since when did you care about Uncle Gamlen?”

Basket shifted alert. “Is the blight that bad?”

“Not if we do things right,” Carver coolly addressed, turning away from Garrett. The older Hawke didn’t know that Basket was the local sergeant, and that Carver was Basket’s superior. Lothering couldn’t afford a panic. “Just thought Kirkwall could benefit from a family visit.”

Garrett spluttered. Kirkwall was the reason why the two of them and Bethany had been raised in armpit nowhere. 

Basket leaned on the bar with Carver, fractionally unwinding. “I see. The locals here could benefit from finding more northern land to farm, anyway,” he grunted. “Hear me, bartender? You folks should make space for the soldiers coming to Lothering.”

“Spread the word,” Carver agreed. 

The bartender grumbled, then blinked at Garrett standing in Carver’s space. It seemed that Carver was still at risk of being recognised even with his armour and helmet on. 

Carver ducked his head and peered at Rhiannon’s letter. “Anyway, I’m busy, Garrett. Let’s talk another time.”

“The next blight then,” Garrett surrendered, humour slipping. He pivoted and stalked off with silent anger. 

The bartender surreptitiously drifted down the bar, spreading word of the almost mundane event he had witnessed. What was a spat between a local and two soldiers? The only detail of note was the fact that the local involved had been the beloved Garrett, and that the soldiers had wanted to kick the locals out for the army’s sake. 

Carver exhaled. 

Rhiannon’s letter at least shared good news. The poor knight in charge of the capital had been forced to arrest Vaughan Kendells for attempting to kidnap and rape a couple elves leaving for Highever, which made for an awkward meeting when half of the Cousland legion rode in to Denerim to warn the Kendells of Arl Rendon’s treachery. 

The king’s army tried to recover from their embarrassment and swore to provide all Cousland servants - elf and human alike - secure travel to Highever, but the Cousland legion vehemently rejected this and insisted on protecting their own themselves. The Kendells legion was meanwhile forced to bow to the king’s army and Cousland legion on the matter of running Denerim. It was the first time in history a couple of elven and human servants were escorted out the capital with a full guard. 

With the Cousland legion had also come a clearer picture of the events at Castle Cousland:

Duncan had been passing through Highever to recruit Ser Roderick, a member of the castle guard, when Arl Rendon and his squad had sacked Castle Cousland. Ser Roderick had fallen in defence of the castle, while Duncan had rescued the visiting Bann Loren’s family and most of the Cousland family. By the time Duncan had managed to reunite the group with Teyrn Bryce in the castle’s pantry, it had been easy to see that their enemies had outnumbered and surrounded them. Teyrn Bryce and Teyrna Eleanor had thus laid down their lives to buy Duncan and the group time to flee the castle. 

Fergus and the Cousland legion had fortunately crossed paths with Duncan and the rest while hurrying north, allowing Duncan to split off for Ostagar, and Fergus to retake Castle Cousland with his wife, son, and Bann Loren’s family safe at the legion’s rear. Fergus had been hurriedly named teyrn of Highever before sending half of his legion to Denerim as promised to Carver, while Bann Loren’s family had returned home to spread word of Arl Rendon’s treachery among the Bannorn. 

So far, Highever was still recovering from the attack, and the state of the Bannorn was a mystery since Ferelden was still in the middle of fighting a blight.

Naturally, Rhiannon’s news came with a flip side. Tensions had spiked between the Cousland and Kendells families, and so long as Arl Rendon couldn’t be captured, the Couslands and their people had no outlet for their grief and rage. The flawed Kendells of Denerim were a ready target. 

Rhiannon was also concerned that in the king’s absence, whoever commanded Denerim with the most power could threaten the hierarchical structure of Ferelden’s kingdom. She wondered when Carver would return to the capital - or even better, when Teyrn Loghain or the king would. 

Carver couldn’t give an answer to that, so he wrote to Rhiannon a temporary solution: to pull out the king’s army from northern patrols, and have the Cousland and Kendells legions share responsibility over them. Knights of the king’s army would remain as their supervisors. Two squads from the king’s army should also be sent to Lothering to assist with population overflow and escort migration as necessary. 

While it was unorthodox asking the Kendells legion to help guard highways leading to Denerim instead of guarding just Denerim itself, “maintenance” of like roads fell under an arling’s duties. Not all of Ferelden’s roads were left to the Couslands and Kendells either, since there were still the mercantile routes around Lake Calenhad, and portions of highways like the southern half of the West Road. The distribution would occupy the Couslands and Kendells from lashing out at each other, and allow Rhiannon to focus on doing her job in the capital while keeping an eye out for Arl Rendon. Carver mentioned he’d also ask Loghain for advice on the matter and forward the commander’s response to Rhiannon when able. 

Carver sent his letter with a runner, before he glanced back at Theron. The Mabari Madness tonic cured a mabari of the taint for at least a year, based on a certain dog’s journey in another timeline, but Theron was the one and only experiment for the tonic working on hominids. 

Given the tenuous link between the tonic’s efficacy and a patient’s magical bloodline, it reasoned to say that the tonic fed to a dog could delay the taint by fifteen _dog_ years, and thus if fed to an elf could delay the taint by fifteen normal years. However, it could be equally likely that having too much “magical blood” was like having a metabolism that was so high, a medicine’s effects would be diminished or negated. In which case, it was possible for the tonic to be effective for one year for mabari, and effective for merely one-fifteenth of a year for elves. The uncertainty was compounded by Carver’s near-negligible modern medical knowledge from his past life, and the fact that he was essentially working with _magic_. 

Even while Carver wanted to pursue a few threads of interest in and from Lothering, Theron - in the unpredictable state that he was - still had the Imperial Highway to cover. 

A headache flirted with Carver’s focus. 

“Basket,” Carver summoned, “I heard concerning news on my way here. The Guerrin legion is delayed from marching to Ostagar?”

“Yes, ser,” Basket readily replied. “Arl Eamon apparently fell ill. He sleeps and takes in drink like a man in slumber, but he won’t wake up.”

Between the rumours, Eamon’s marriage with an Orlesian, and the arl’s letter to the king, Eamon was easy to dye with suspicion. One could assume he was partial towards welcoming Orlesian forces into Ferelden; as the king’s uncle, they could be the Wardens whom Cailan wanted, while as the king’s uncle who believed he knew better, they could also be the chevaliers whom Celene wanted. Thus in the time leading up to Loghain’s departure from Denerim for Ostagar, Carver had gauged Loghain’s mood towards Arl Eamon and had kept an eye on army mail in and out of the capital. 

Without Rendon Howe whispering in Loghain’s ear, Carver had eventually come to believe that Loghain wouldn’t feel compelled to pursue an extreme measure and have Eamon drugged into a temporary slumber, until such a time that Orlesian forces were certain to not enter Ferelden at any moment. 

Now, Carver doubted not just his judgement, but his own senses. Had he missed a sign in Loghain’s behaviour, no matter how subtle? Had Carver allowed himself to balance too many issues to keep an eye on, and missed the sign even if it had been obvious? Was Eamon merely fated to catch an illness in the spring? Carver hadn’t noticed strange behaviour within the king’s army before and after Loghain had left the capital, so it was difficult to determine if the arl’s illness was a product of external influence or medieval hygiene. 

The pressing mystery was just one thread. 

Another was Carver’s reluctance to leave things as they were with Garrett, and by extension the rest of the Hawke family. There were still many other threads Carver wanted to personally pursue, but Carver ultimately directed his resources to his highest priorities. 

“Send two soldiers to Redcliffe,” he ordered Basket, mind racing to justify the command. “Have them check on the health of Arlessa Isolde and Lord Connor. If they return with any observations of note, write to me.” 

Carver dismissed Basket and searched for the tavern owner. If he allowed himself one of the grim thoughts he kept boxed away, he knew he might not need his possessions after Ostagar, so he had the tavern owner promise to send a message and the rest of Carver’s money to the Hawkes. 

Carver said to emphasise that he loved his family and wanted them safe north of Lothering, and though the affection was hollow without direct communication, Carver had to make do. Seeing the Hawke family in person would have meant a somber sit-down conversation that would have lasted for days that Theron couldn’t waste. Carver was fond of the Hawkes, but he couldn’t play favourites in the current circumstances. 

Without staying to rest, Carver and Theron mounted horses of the king’s army and put any regrets and Lothering behind them. They had to. 

* * *

;

* * *

Their arrival to Ostagar was anticipated by the last person Carver expected. 

“Ah…ser.” Duncan saluted in greeting. “I sensed your approach.” 

“Theron,” Carver ignored, “Warden-Commander Duncan. Warden, Theron Mahariel.” 

Scattered patrolmen marked the edge of camp, blanketed by quiet provided by their sparse numbers and open hilltop air that was obstructed by so few stone pillars, the wide sky seemed to press down on the naked ruins of Ostagar. Even as soldiers trickled into the nearby Tower of Ishal, their whispering armour barely registered to Duncan, Carver, and Theron as they stared at each other. 

“I see.” Duncan blinked at Carver’s bluntness. 

Carver crossed his arms. “Wardens can sense the taint, can they not?” 

“We also decide if someone is worthy of joining our order,” Duncan returned. He looked at Theron. “The Dalish are counted among some of the proudest warriors in our history. I hadn’t expected one of your people to come with a soldier of the king’s army.” 

Theron inclined his head. “…Carver is fine company.”

Introvert. So _silence_ was fine company. 

Carver didn’t shift his weight. “Will you save Theron’s life or not?” 

Duncan neutrally hummed. “I take responsibility for his life, and no more. Walk where you must, ser.” 

The Joining was a secret, so it was true that Duncan could make no promises or explain himself. Carver knew when he was dismissed. 

Theron snatched Carver’s elbow before he could pivot off. The elf shifted. “Carver…thank you again.”

“You’ll live,” Carver assured - _stated,_ like it was fact. “I meant it when I said you might have the strongest will in Thedas. Joining the Wardens, facing a blight - you’ll see your next birthday and reflect on this moment with pleasant vagueness. Your future is ahead of you, Theron. It always has been.” 

Theron’s ears twitched, his anxiety seen through. “You seem to know much, for a human.”

“Take care, Theron.” 

They exchanged heavy glances before parting ways. Carver almost missed the faint smile on Theron’s lips. 

* * *

;

* * *

Loghain wasn’t pleased by Carver’s arrival - both his absence from the capital, and his tardiness to the front line. 

“Ferelden shan’t suffer the stumbling of fools,” Loghain said, clipped. “If two arlings prove allergic to reason, then one must force-feed it to them. I’m sending Ser Cauthrien back north.” 

“The captain?” Carver quirked a brow. 

So long as “the king’s army” encompassed all of Ferelden’s legions, Loghain was the army’s commander next to His Majesty, and Ser Cauthrien led the king’s personal legion in Loghain’s stead as its only captain. It seemed overkill to send Cauthrien to Rhiannon when the captain’s skills would be more useful against darkspawn, and if the blight could end soon, Cailan or Loghain’s arrivals might as well be expedited over Cauthrien’s. The projection for Ferelden’s darkspawn was currently a near future of exile to the Deep Roads, based on the consecutive victories of the king’s army and on Loghain’s tactical prowess to maintain the consistency. 

No one was expecting an archdemon. 

Carver slipped his helmet off and shook his hair. Many times had he wanted to protest his superiors’ decisions, from Basket to Cailan, but there was a limit to overstepping one’s rank. If Carver wanted order around him, he had to remember to respect it. “Shall I prepare Ser Cauthrien’s immediate departure for the capital?” 

“No.” Loghain flicked a road map on the war table. “Your call was sound. Ser Rhiannon can handle the distributed Cousland and Kendells legions as they are, and Arl Rendon must turn up eventually. Ser Cauthrien has time to ease the change of the royal legion’s command before she rides for Denerim. Inform Ser Cauthrien of her new duties and receive your post from her—“

They were interrupted. When commanders weren’t with their legions, after all, they were in the war tent. 

“Pardon,” a man in marked armour stepped in, “I couldn’t help but hear mention of Denerim. _What_ has the royal legion commanded of the Kendells and Cousland legions remaining north? I have a right to know of significant changes in my domain.”

“Arl Urien?” Carver identified, and when he looked, received a nod from Loghain permitting Carver to share the news. Arl Urien Kendells was the man who, outside of the royal palace, owned the kingdom’s capital, and who, outside of Gwaren, owned Ferelden’s most profitable sea port. He was educated, cultured, and unafraid to wrestle with mabari like any Ferelden. He was essentially the most influential arl of the north, where Arl Eamon was of the south. 

And he was about to be massively disappointed. 

“Where should I even begin.” Carver hesitated, and was easily answered by Urien. 

“A simple start would be my son.”

Ack. “Very well,” Carver readily answered. “Lord Vaughan has been arrested for sexual assault.”

Urien stilled. “That boy dares blemish the family name?”

Carver ignored Urien’s priorities and continued with a blank face. “As for the entire situation: Arl Rendon’s murder of Highever’s teyrnir, his siege of Castle Cousland, and his currently unknown whereabouts have forced the Couslands to be wary of even those they once explicitly trusted. Ser Rhiannon of the king’s army in Denerim has extended additional rights to the Cousland legion on the promise they assist the skeleton crews patrolling the highways and protecting Denerim, which the Cousland legion has so far answered with trust. At the same time, within days of Teyrn Fergus Cousland’s ordered recollection of all Highever loyalists, Lord Vaughan attempted to sexually assault three Highever servants and obstruct their ability to leave Denerim. Ser Rhiannon has been forced to assign separate highway patrols to the Cousland and Kendells legions for everyone’s safety.” 

Urien spluttered. “Then…who runs Denerim!?” 

“Presently, the king’s army,” Carver calmly replied. “Teyrn Fergus is focused on securing Highever, and the Bannorn nobility that are left from those who have marched to Ostagar have proven difficult to contact.” 

Loghain blinked at the last two bits. The royal family technically had no jurisdiction outside the palace regarding Denerim, and it went without saying that a queen’s influence over the king’s army typically applied only in peacetime, when she shared control with the king over the army as the royal palace’s protection. If Anora’s name was attached to the king’s army that had invited the Cousland legion to briefly control Denerim’s escorts and that was currently ordering the Kendells around, Anora could be accused of tyranny at worst. 

Between that and the news Carver carried, the kingdom’s entire nobility was essentially too occupied to sense the empty capital or act on it. The king was needed now more than ever to return to his throne, but Cailan was still fighting with his army against darkspawn. 

Carver had basically admitted that Ferelden currently had a power vacuum, and no one had noticed. 

Of course, this was all from a certain perspective. No Ferelden considered Ser Rhiannon’s unopposed influence from the capital as military rule, especially since Loghain’s devotion to Ferelden’s value of freedom reflected well on those who served under him. Therefore, Denerim, the seat of power, _seemed_ to be “unclaimed.” Carver also had faith in Queen Anora’s political sense to continue maintaining Ferelden’s state of affairs from behind the scenes. In wartime where informed centralised power encouraged efficiency, Carver preferred this temporary “military rule.” 

From an intellectual standpoint, it was better than Carver could have hoped for. After all, he had originally been prepared to address certain interests in the Circle of Magi and Orzammar, and leave Denerim in the hands of his superiors. Instead, Carver’s deal with Oriana and his prioritising of the little people had led to Vaughan’s arrest and the Couslands’ assistance with Denerim’s security, and Carver considered the protection of elven servants from rape worth the threat of military conflict between three noble houses. Ferelden’s nobility had already been unstable long before Carver had arrived. 

If Carver had to cut it down, his losses were ultimately the unknown but depressingly imaginable situations of the Circle and Orzammar. The burden of seriously acknowledging every ripple of his actions would otherwise drive him insane. 

Urien shared Loghain’s impression of the kingdom’s situation. “My idiot son dares _lose control_ of Denerim!?”

Carver didn’t respond to Urien’s expectant, intense expression. At the end of the day, Carver’s duty was to share information, not opinions, and he had stated all the relevant facts concerning Vaughan Kendells’ situation…and none of his personal analysis. Carver’s judgement was validated by Urien quickly dismissing his existence with a gaze that glossed over as the arl sighed and pinched his nose. 

“I must write letters,” Urien excused himself to Loghain, and pivoted out of the tent. 

A pocket of silence returned to Loghain and Carver. 

The seasoned commander between them murmured lowly. “It sounds like the north needs you more than the south.”

Carver didn’t hear a question, so he didn’t answer. 

Loghain looked at him. “There is respect in the quill as there is in the sword, Ser Carver. Anyone can pick up a blade; not so wit.”

“Let the mabari have respect, Teyrn,” Carver curtly replied. “I shall not leave Ostagar regardless.”

Loghain wasn’t impressed. “I shall pretend that you are not the dunce you seem determined to imitate, and assume you know where you are best served. Enlighten me, then, why you wish to wield steel for the king even knowing this.”

Carver sighed. Without sounding crazy? “The royal line is Ferelden’s lifeblood. I would be honoured beyond description to protect it.”

Loghain stared at him with a frightfully unreadable gaze, before the teyrn appeared to come to a conclusion. “Inform Ser Cauthrien of her new duties and receive your post from her. Dismissed.”

* * *

;

* * *

Finding Cauthrien proved as difficult as when Carver had navigated his way across camp for the war tent. The southern ruins of Ostagar’s fortress were occupied past its limits, so that legions under different banners spilled out into the Korcari Wilds around them. A fence of wooden spikes separated the southern face of camp from the direction of the darkspawn infestation, while the northern end of the fortress was starkly vacant save for the soldiers preparing the Tower for signalfire, and the patrolmen guarding them. 

In the fashion of Cailan’s impressionability, the king’s tent and the war tent stood at the foot of Ostagar’s fortress among the commoners. The fenced area of camp was crowded, but Carver had little trouble locating Cailan. 

The king was chatting up soldiers and wardens in the latter’s huddle of tents with ease, as if Cailan was a born beam of sunlight. The crowding around him markedly differed from plain tightness, as Fereldens were drawn to the king’s easy confidence, and the Wardens had no hardship being amicable with him. Carver passed a quartermaster, a servant elf, and a lay sister before he reached the halfway point of camp and picked out Maric’s Shield uphill. They were settled in Ostagar’s solana. 

“Ser Cauthrien,” Carver called. 

The captain was accepting a report from Ash Warrior scouts. She nodded to the courier and glanced up at Carver’s arrival. “Ser Carver.” 

“Orders from Teyrn Loghain.” Carver slowed to a stop and passed Rhiannon’s letter. “Brief Nails for succeeding your role. You’re wanted in Denerim.” 

Cauthrien opened the letter to be greeted with paragraphs of tight writing, and shuffled it under the scout report. Carver handled small details; Cauthrien only worked with the big picture. “Received. Fetch Ser Nigel from the Warden recruits - I understand the Grey Wardens recently conscripted a knight, a cutpurse, and a mage of noteworthy features. Return here for your post when you’re done.” 

“My post…?”

“Will be assigned on your return.” Cauthrien looked at him flatly. 

Hurry up and wait, essentially. Carver saluted and ran to cross the entire camp again. That darned Nails - why couldn’t the knight flirt with a Chantry sister? Then he’d be at the sacellum or infirmary instead of the front of camp. 

At least Cauthrien’s comment enlightened Carver on the path Duncan had taken out of Highever. The warden must have followed the eastern road by Lake Calenhad for Ostagar, and passed by the Circle Tower to recruit a mage on the way. Carver already knew from his past life that the knight and cutpurse whom Cauthrien had mentioned were Ser Jory and Daveth. They were two examples of people Nails hadn’t pursued before, but there was a first for everything. 

“Hey, you!”

Carver turned. Was that…Bryce Cousland’s youngest? “Ser Elissa,” he greeted. 

The youngest of the late teyrn’s children tilted her head at Carver as she approached. She stood tall and broad-shouldered, with a waterfall of brown hair past her neck. A shield and sword hung strapped to her. “You’ve passed me twice wandering through the Wardens tents. You looking for Warden-Commander Duncan?” 

Carver closed his mouth, bewildered. “No, that’s - I was looking for the warden recruits, if you’ve seen them.” 

She gestured. “Then you found us.” 

“…Us?” 

“Well,” Elissa revealed a small bonfire behind her, “there’s me, then Faren Brosca, and Solona Amell. Duncan recruited us. I understand we have one more in number, but he’s off fetching Warden Alistair.”

A red-haired dwarf with a tattoo under his eye dispassionately flicked a gaze up from where he sat sharpening a knife, and a black-haired mage next to him timidly nodded in greeting. Carver whipped his gaze back to Elissa. 

A knight, a cutpurse, and a mage. 

_Maker_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates are going to start slowing down, but due to real life and not a lack of motivation on my part. I love reading everyone’s comments! If I could download my thoughts straight into a Word document without need for proofreading, all of my fics would update a lot faster, haha. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that timeline.


	5. Ser Carver

Elissa patted Carver’s shoulder, unaware of his mental blue screen. “You look…familiar. Have you passed through Highever before?” She was sporting the Cousland heraldry on her armour, which gave away her identity. 

Carver hesitated. “Maybe once.” 

“Wait, I see it,” Elissa grinned. “Solona looks like she could be your cousin from Rivain.”

Hm. “She is.”

Everyone spluttered.

“Or Antiva, I’m not sure.”

Solona timidly gaped. “Y-You know I’m your cousin, but not where I’m from?”

Carver shrugged. “We’re related through our matriarchal parentage. I know admittedly little of Revka Amell and even less of your father, save that they reluctantly shipped you to the Circle before I was born. I recognise our relations by virtue of merely your face and name.”

At first sight, he had nearly called the mage recruit “Bethany” before catching himself, and he wasn’t easily mistaken as Bethany’s born twin. Solona shared Bethany’s sweet face and dark hair, and the Amell family’s electric blue eyes, as if Bethany’s mirror was pointed Carver’s direction. The only differences between the two girls was Solona’s northern blood darkening her skin to a smooth, milky chocolate, and her thick hair being worn back in a long braid. 

She was beautiful like a sheltered flower. Carver was tempted to kick half of the camp out for her safety, just in case, but had to remember that no matter the personality or appearance, every candidate for Warden was capable of taking on a blight and winning.

“I remember now!” Elissa placed her fist on her palm, drawing Carver’s attention. “You were running a message at Castle Cousland, yes? Quite the task for someone from the capital. I was just your age when I was squiring under my father. Then I won my first battle against pirates in the Waking Seas.” 

Carver blinked. “But wouldn’t that…?”

“My mother is retired.” 

“Very well.” 

The Soldier and the Seawolf was a famous shanty, and Loghain and the king’s army _had_ searched the seas for Maric for two years. It was a wonder that with such a horrible first meeting so as to be immortalised in a song, Bryce and Eleanor Cousland had not only married but had had two children. Carver was half-surprised they hadn’t had more. 

“Speak freely, page,” Elissa encouraged. “What message have you to deliver?” 

Carver wasn’t a page, but…ah, well. His inconvenient attention span was curious about the dwarf Faren, yet duties had to come first. “Less a message for the recruits than for their company. Know you a Ser Nigel? Or a Daveth and Ser Jory, for that matter?” 

“Daveth?” The dwarf, Faren, perked up. “Yeh, plenty of them Daveths here.” 

“It’s a common name on the surface,” Solona shyly informed. “As for a Ser Jory, I admittedly know no such man.” 

Elissa shrugged. 

Carver pinched his nose bridge. “What of a man named Nails?” 

The three recruits’ faces immediately darkened. 

Carver sighed. “May I ask—?”

“That way,” they pointed. 

“Many thanks.” 

Carver quickly left and eventually found Nails dancing his brow at an Ash Warrior. The painted scout was starting to glare at Nails from across camp. 

“That’s right, I’m looking at you.”

“Nails.”

“I think the man’s mabari is playing wingman for me, Ser Carv.” 

“You’re going to lose the one thing you take pride in. Or, two things.” 

“How was the capital?” 

“Ser Cauthrien needs to brief you on a new position.” 

“Sweet Andraste.” Nails immediately turned. “No really, _bride of the Maker,_ Ser Carver. _Me_ in charge of the legion?”

“I’m just as horrified.” 

“Truly.” Nails briskly followed Carver back to the legion’s solana. Nails’ casual and professional faces were like night and day. The crowd hastily parted where they walked, persuaded by Nails’ dark expression. “Report,” he barked. 

Carver was quickly tiring of repeating himself, but it proved to be a persistent part of his duties ever since joining the king’s army. He gave a brief rundown of the Coastlands’ situation.

Nails frowned. “Then the captain _is_ needed back north. What about Little Billy or Princess?” 

“You have more mission records of leadership.”

“Maker.”

Everyone including Nails had already expected him to succeed Cauthrien as captain, but before Carver’s arrival to Ostagar, the entertained possibility had been a distant future. Now Nails was going to have his first taste of commanding soldiers who had been in the king’s army since Denerim - the officially labelled, “royal legion.” Nails would also be doing so with little guidance, as Loghain was currently commanding a dozen legions at once, and Cauthrien was to be occupied in the capital. It was a trial by fire afforded by the blight. Carver didn’t envy him. 

They found Cauthrien quickly and received their new posts from her. Cauthrien handed Nails a heavy stack of papers and pulled Carver aside. 

“Take this.” She handed him a longsword bearing the crest of the king’s army. 

Carver purposefully misunderstood. “To whom?” 

“Yourself,” Cauthrien stated flatly. “Stop parading your unmarked armour around; we’re not a militia, and you’re not a harmless little boy. I need you proper.” 

“Then I’d be too efficient.” 

“Do I hear cheek, Ser Carver?”

“Help the quartermaster, report at the end of the day,” Carver listed off his new duties, and saluted. “Copy.”

* * *

;

* * *

Carver replaced the forgettable sword slung over his back with the marked sword Cauthrien had given him, and eventually found his target stringing requisition orders together while sitting on a chest. Carver looked down at him. 

“Quartermaster?” he prodded, like he had to ask. 

The bearded man glanced up at Carver’s unmarked armour, unable to see the marked pommel of Carver’s sword from where he sat. “…I’m busy.”

“Then we both are. Ser Carver of Maric’s Shield. I’ve been assigned to you.” 

“Sweet Andraste,” the man stumbled to his feet, “I asked that lady captain for help, not - Maric’s Shield! You lot are the elite of the army, aren’t you?” 

“You’re addressing the needs of one million soldiers, healers, and staff,” Carver reasoned. “Ser Cauthrien recognises the importance of your work, so she sent me to expedite the process. Not to worry - I have experience with requisitions and running messages. Should you require rare items, I can gather them as well.” The soldiers guarding the fence were all members of the royal legion, so they’d let Carver slip out if asked. “Just don’t ask me to fetch something native to the deeper bogs of the Korcari Wilds.” 

The quartermaster gaped at the news, and blinked at the tail-end of them. “What, are witches of the wild real?”

Carver grimaced. “I’d simply rather not tempt fate.” 

His suppressed anxiety would have liked it if Flemeth was merely a batty old apostate, and not host to a vindictive elven immortal with a deeper understanding of magic than anyone currently alive. Carver had no desire to have his strange existence explained soon - or worse, to have said immortal elf seeing him and his knowledge as a threat, and killing him. 

“Fair enough.” The quartermaster nodded. “The Ash Warriors need a pound of deathroot, and the Revered Mother needs needles - at least a dozen of them. The rest of the orders can be handed off to an elf. Actually, if you see a red-haired one, send her back here. She should be done with the chainmail by now.”

“Servant.”

“Sorry?”

“ _Elf_ is an identity. _Servant_ is a job description.”

“I guess.”

Carver sighed. Some people wouldn’t understand without a more roundabout approach. “At least one of the Grey Wardens here is an elf. It is in the army’s best interests that we avoid careless comments, so mind your tongue.”

“Oh! I…I understand now, ser. Thank you.”

Carver inwardly grimaced, but merely nodded and left to scour the camp for deathroot. Someone else had been a “minority” in their past life, and they found standing on either side of racism predictably unpleasant. Experiencing a brush of it in Thedas stirred a sense of righteousness in them that they struggled to contain, intimately aware that there was a time for action and inaction where the latter was smarter more often than not. 

Being “smart” in Thedas was just one of many hurdles that someone else had to face while trying to live in a foreign world. They swallowed the indignance down. Emotionally distancing themselves helped. No, it was sometimes necessary, if they wanted to be calm. 

Maybe the Carver that others knew was awkward, or aloof, or cold. 

Someone else didn’t know. 

Regardless, Carver fulfilled the more dangerous requisition orders and intimidated insignificant requests away from the quartermaster until sundown, when the army started gearing up for the coming battle. Carver had snooped around the Tower of Ishal at one point under the guise of fulfilling a requisition order, but couldn’t determine where the darkspawn were likely to dig through, so he had tossed a few comments to Cauthrien and Nails. One of Nails’ first orders to the army was thus to add a few Maric’s Shield members to the Tower’s security. Cauthrien also decided she wouldn’t head north until after the battle started, just to momentarily gauge Nails’ performance under pressure, so Carver entertained the hope that the battle wouldn’t end with a slaughter. 

He had unsteady hope. 

After all, one common person alone couldn’t easily prevent a massacre. 

Carver caught a glimpse of the war council meeting on the eve of battle. Nails wanted to know when the meeting looked ready to end, so that he could ready the royal legion to move ahead of time. Carver arrived at the fenced edge of the war council in time to see all of the army’s commanders standing around a table that had been moved outside for the occasion, along with Loghain and Cailan. 

It was a crowd of impressive armour. Theron, Elissa, Solona, and Faren were also present, behind Duncan and near the king, but they didn’t seem to be addressed much. They shifted uncomfortably at Cailan and Loghain’s frank exchanges while the commanders around them didn’t so much as blink at their leaders’ conduct. Carver inwardly sighed at what he could pick up. 

“…Too dangerous for you to be playing hero on the front lines…”

“…Wait for the Orlesian forces to join us, then…”

“…Fool notion…”

“…You will remember who is king!”

Neither Cailan nor Loghain were wrong, but they had different goals. Their language was accordingly…tense. 

“…Light the signal…”

“…Wise to rely on these Wardens so much…?”

“…Enough conspiracy theories…”

Duncan’s voice, then Loghain’s. 

“… _No sign_ of dragons in the wilds…”

Cailan’s easy tone, then Duncan’s resigned one. Uldred’s aside, quickly sniped by the Revered Mother. The war council quickly devolved into an argument from multiple angles. 

“Enough!” Loghain’s voice cut through the din. “This plan will suffice….”

Cailan’s improved mood, scattering the tension like magic. A focused, if boring, tone captured the meeting. 

Carver slipped away to return to Nails. 

“Great. Everyone to their positions!” Nails’ voice rang out in the solana, and the royal legion moved out in formation. Nails glanced back at Cauthrien’s approving nod, then turned to Carver. “You’re in the back with the mages.”

Carver jolted. “Nails— permission to speak freely, ser?”

“Denied.”

No way. Carver had to walk with the king - he had to _protect_ him. Carver looked at Cauthrien. “This is because I’m the youngest one here, is it?”

“There aren’t enough Templars to protect all the mages,” Nails commanded Carver’s attention back to him. “Carver. You can’t undermine me like this.”

Carver knew that. He knew that going around Nails would diminish the legion’s respect for the acting captain before even entering the battlefield. Carver hung his head. 

Nails’ posture loosened with wordless sympathy. “Dismissed.”

Carver half-heartedly saluted and left. 

Thunder rolled in the distance, and the first drop of rain fell. 

* * *

;

* * *

The king’s army went into position and followed its leaders’ guidance. 

It was a good plan. 

The signal was lit on time. 

Carver knew so, when he and the Templars surged forward with the pincer attack to protect the mages, just in time to watch a blast of lightning cut through their buddies next to them. 

Darkspawn rushed into the army’s gaps like water, and thunder clapped above as another spray of lightning stitched the air between ground and sky. Carver couldn’t compute the number of casualties created in that instant as he lost sight of half the army. An arc of lightning must have also found the oil barrels deep in camp, because the southern ruins behind everyone suddenly burst in flames. A Templar frantically smote a mage casting fire on accident. Carver pushed between them before they could further act, and in his inattention received a blow from an ogre’s swing that tossed him into a herd of soldiers like a bowling ball. 

Armour dug into Carver’s soft joints, and lightning flashed behind his eyes. He struggled to find his feet and soon learned that the soldiers with him were likewise stumbling, disoriented and weighed down by thirty pounds of leather and chainmail, if not armour. He saw a soldier free his head of his helmet and gasp for air, before a darkspawn’s sword cut clean through his neck. The headless body slumped back into the human rat’s nest Carver was part of and rain blood on all passersby and the ground in front of it. Another ogre’s swing tossed up a flurry of Ash Warriors and mabari, and when Carver freed himself of the mob, he regripped his longsword with one hand and swung it at the ogre’s back, only to cut a darkspawn beyond his periphery instead. 

He didn’t remove his helmet. 

He stood up, stepped over a dead body only to accidentally crush its hand, and kept swinging. 

Darkspawn flooded in from all directions and crawled over both allies and enemies like ants, so that the three feet between the edge of Carver’s sword and the ogre’s hide seemed to take forever to close. Wherever Carver stepped, he couldn’t find even footing, and every inch back found the battlefield one limb taller with the dead piling up. Carver turned to cut down a darkspawn throwing itself at him, then a hurlock tearing someone’s arm off, then a bare foot the size of Carver’s torso kicking back at him. 

A wound split the foot’s sole before Carver realised he had cut the ogre. 

A body then abruptly shoved into him from the side, and he and a darkspawn blinked at each other while a knight beyond them leapt up through the smoke and rain and drove a sword into the ogre’s chest. Carver stumbled back in time to witness the dead ogre tip over and crush the darkspawn with its back, one inch short of flattening Carver. He reflexively blocked an incoming swing and turned to face another darkspawn, while a second horde swept over the ogre’s body and hit Carver, the knight, and what he could see of the army around him. Carver didn’t have time to survey or even watch his back. 

He fought with his life on the line behind every swing. 

He fought, and fought. 

And fought. 

He was distantly aware of a world beyond his sword, but couldn’t afford to think about it. Trees fell, comrades fell, and darkspawn flooded in. A rain of stone crashed over the battlefield, and Carver instinctively turned over his shoulder for a split second as he stumbled with the knock of a brick, catching sight of smoke, fire, and - with a flash of lightning - the outline of a leathery wing. 

Thunder slammed into Carver, knocking him to the ground. 

He hastily got to his feet knowing he’d die quickly on his back, and shook the rain out of his eyes in his helmet. That was not mere thunder. Ostagar’s fortress was being torn apart. 

The archdemon was wreaking havoc. 

Carver intercepted a blade for his heart and kept swinging, fighting, breathing. 

He fought for one hour. 

Two. 

He didn’t know anything else, until finally, it all faded away as he collapsed. 

* * *

;

* * *

The thunder had a melody. 

It wanted to go home.

* * *

;

* * *

Someone else breathed in––

* * *

;

* * *

Carver awoke to the living picking themselves up from the dead. Around him, warriors bloody and bawling like newborn babes surfaced from the unblinking mounds of soldiers, darkspawn, and ogres that had replaced the landscape. Fire burned in patches where broken tents and splintered trees lay, casting an eerie orange glow on the faceless armoured figures that stumbled past Carver, weeping or speechless. 

Carver crawled out of a tangle of bodies and tugged his elbow free of someone’s grip. Rigor mortis. Dead, for at least three hours. Carver felt like weeping, himself.

The battle’s survivors were streaming into the camp ruins. Rain and ash had muddied the earth so that the easiest surface to tread was the fallen stone carcass of the Tower of Ishal, which paved a path from Ostagar’s valley to the remains of Duncan’s fire. The rest of the tower was mixed with the rubble of the fortress’s walls it had crashed against, and no bodies sprouted out from there. Everyone within the archdemon’s vicinity had most assuredly perished. 

A Chantry lay brother, bless his heart, was calling out to the injured so that he might treat them the best he could, even as a novice healer. Some people were meant for crises. 

Broken soldiers pooled around the brother, everyone bloody and not a few trembling. Carver navigated around a handful of soldiers that had shrugged out of their armour to assist the brother, and spied a golden glint beyond broken stone arches. A closer look revealed familiar faces gathered around the war table, the meeting space now a frenzied collection of heraldries on armour. 

“Where are the Wardens?”

“Someone stop the bleeding!”

“Wait - don’t touch it!”

Carver cut through the panic to wordlessly grab a soldier’s wrist before they could make contact with Cailan’s tainted blood. Indeed, the unconscious king possessed a pallor Carver had seen only once before, on Theron. 

A ripple of soldiers stepped back from Cailan’s body on the table while Loghain’s gauntlets allowed him the protection to continue treating Cailan’s obvious wounds. A few soldiers had caught on and were assisting the teyrn with their gauntlets on, but commanders vibrating with distant horror at recent events were frantically pacing in the background. 

  
“What shall we do? The king is dead!”

“Silence, my lords,” Loghain barked. “Your loose tongues bring us no help. Warden-Commander?”

Duncan was kneeled across from him, cleaning Cailan’s wounds in similar fashion. The warden’s hair was loose from its ponytail and his armour was battered and beyond repair, but he was blessedly whole and coherent. “My condolences,” Duncan said. 

The commanders in the back surged forward. “A Warden? You must have a cure!”

Loghain’s lips were curled ahead of them. “Do not toy with me now, Warden-Commander!”

“The ingredients for the Wardens’ Joining were lost in the battle,” Duncan calmly replied. “There is no cure for the taint. You have my sympathies.”

“Keep them,” someone suddenly chirped in the chaos. Heads turned - and stilled at the sight of vallaslin and long ears. Theron stood straight, drenched in sweat and blood and tense with determination. He had all the historical reasons to curse the human race, but he spoke with offered confidence. “There is a temporary cure for the human king, Duncan,” Theron continued to the Warden-Commander. “The same that bought me time to find you. Carver knows it.” 

The war council was plunged in silence as a multitude of eyes eventually found Carver. 

_Sweet Andraste._

“Ser Carver,” Loghain curtly identified. 

Carver hesitantly stepped forward, wondering what in Maker’s name he was doing there. Just moments ago, he had been in a battlefield, breathing rainwater and drawing blood. “T-Teyrn…my lords…the warden speaks truly but…misguidedly. He refers to the old Alamarri Mabari Madness tonic.”

“It worked for me,” Theron pointed out. 

“Aye,” Carver reluctantly agreed, “but that is credited to the magical history running through you, as you are of elven…blood….”

“…And King Cailan is of dragon’s blood.” Realisation dawned on everyone with Duncan’s remark. The Warden-Commander whipped his stern gaze Theron’s way. “Theron, locate the ingredients for the tonic and bring them here right away.”

“Take a squad with you,” Loghain commanded, and a litter of soldiers immediately pivoted to follow Theron out of the council. The commander turned to a group of Ash Warriors nearby. “I know not the details of this tonic - gather whatever tools you must and prepare to treat the king. Spread the news to any surviving Ash Warriors you find. What resources the king’s army has are at your disposal.” The painted warriors solemnly nodded and dispersed, and Loghain faced Duncan. “Where would one find the ingredients for this Joining you speak of?”

Duncan exhaled. “The process is a centuries’-long secret—“

Loghain growled. “If your young warden hadn’t had the intimate understanding of this tonic Cailan needs, I would have banished you this instant.”

“But,” Duncan continued, “the Wardens recognise the necessity of Ferelden’s royal line. The issue lies in the Joining’s key ingredient of archdemon blood.”

The remaining soldiers recoiled at the news, and not a few enraged shouts rose at mention of the archdemon. 

A commander, Arl Urien, frantically raised his voice above the din. “It matters not! The archdemon flies where our eyes cannot see and our current forces cannot reach!”

“Us wardens can sense the taint,” Duncan shared. “However, so long as darkspawn populate the surface, telling them from the archdemon will prove a nigh impossible task. Teyrn Loghain, we need an army.”

Loghain spluttered. “What forces remaining here must hold the line against the southern horde! We are not so foolish as to mistake the retreat of those creatures as their defeat - and as you say, darkspawn can surface from anywhere across the kingdom now that the archdemon roams unchecked. Ferelden has no spare army to throw in such a massive search!”

“Ancient Warden treaties demand cooperation from all peoples with the Wardens.” Duncan jerked his chin to the side. “Find Alistair.”

A warden by Duncan’s shoulder silently nodded and disappeared into the moving crowd of armour. 

“Ser Carver,” Loghain summoned. “How much of the tonic does the king need to buy him how much time?”

Carver obediently moved to the teyrn’s side and kneeled, his movements mechanical. He knew why the darkspawn had “retreated.” After all, the only survivors of the valley were male. 

He compartmentalised. He had no use for the ability to shudder. 

“One bottle carried Warden Theron through the ten days it took to travel to Ostagar,” Carver reported, “but I cannot speak for its effectiveness over a longer period. Noting the tonic’s effect on mabari, and Theron’s reaction to it, I would suggest feeding King Cailan a bottle of the tonic every one-fifteenth of a year, minimum. That is about…every twenty-four days. If I may, Teyrn, I believe our Ash Warriors have a better hand at determining appropriate dosages for His Majesty than I do.”

The warden from earlier returned in that moment with Alistair propped up between him and Elissa. Alistair’s hair was matted with blood, and Elissa had a bruised jaw, but they were both alive. 

“Duncan?” Alistair called out. 

“Alistair,” Duncan exhaled in relief, stealing a moment to take in the sight of his ward. “Do you have the treaties?” 

There was a moment of wordless synchrony where Alistair minutely inclined his head, and Elissa slipped folded papers out of his pouch at the same time. Whatever horror the two had experienced, it had been together, and it showed. 

“Very good,” Duncan praised. “Alistair, Elissa, I must ask you to gather the peoples of Ferelden into an army and search for the archdemon. Do _not_ slay it without first contacting me.” 

Alistair’s jaw dropped. “Army–– _Not_ slay— You want us to _leave_ you? _Now,_ of all times?” 

“This is not up for debate,” Duncan shut him down. “The king is tainted, and the most grievous of his wounds can only be treated by those immune to the taint. Additionally, the king’s army has suffered losses where us wardens’ ability to sense darkspawn is needed now more than ever. I have no other wardens to spare.” 

“Send Richu, or Tarimel - or any other experienced warden!” Alistair spluttered. “Why, Grigor is even straight from the Anderfels!” 

“A number of ours have perished, and the rest will help me and the king’s army hold the front line,” Duncan determined. 

“––No,” Carver brusquely cut in. “Warden-Commander, you are functional but not uninjured. Your broken leg demands you remain behind the front line with the king, and no closer.” 

Duncan leaned a portion of his weight off his left side where he knelt. “…The wound is in my ankle, and not my leg. No matter, your knight is sharp, Teyrn Loghain. I will command the Wardens from the king’s side as I treat His Majesty.”

“Attach one warden to each legion of the king’s army,” Loghain ordered. “Better yet, two if possible - one to sense for the legion, another to run messages. We need to maintain tight communication with the forces we have left, and we can’t afford to lose our runners easily. Ser Cauthrien, accompany the two wardens out of Ostagar—“ He suddenly faltered, self-aware. “Arl Urien,” he called. 

The arl moved to Loghain’s side as Carver rapidly blinked. Ser Cauthrien? It couldn’t be she was…the captain was…. 

“Teyrn Loghain?” Urien answered. 

“Return north and demand peace between your family and the Couslands,” Loghain ordered with a rough voice, then cleared his throat. “Ferelden can not afford to be fractured while the darkspawn declare war. Organise an army out of the remaining Kendells, Cousland, and Guerrin legions - table your differences if you must - and for _the_ _love of the Maker,_ control your son.”

“Understood.” Urien saluted, but remained. “However, Teyrn Loghain, I am obligated to pray you consider reaching out to your queen daughter regarding the continued management of Ferelden. With the king incapacitated, and two armies required to tide the darkspawn influence in Ferelden, one must be concerned about the common folk’s reception of a meritless noble grasping the kingdom’s remaining reins.” 

“My _daughter,_ ” Loghain curtly replied, “is plenty capable of ruling a kingdom on her own, and I’ll not have you breathe life into rumours _not worth hearing_. I most certainly won’t suffer you offering yourself up as the _merited noble,_ as it were.” 

“Between a lack of childbirth or the successful command of soldiers, the people of Ferelden have only one place to invest their respect—“

“Choose your next words carefully, arl—!“

“Fool of a soldier, I am not offering myself!” Urien burst. “I say this as a born Ferelden: the people would feel more at ease knowing _you_ were with the queen to lead us through these troubling times. The king’s army ultimately needs the Wardens’ leadership above anyone else’s, and the remaining noble houses would readily unite before a threat to the kingdom. We must thus consider the vacancy in the _capital’s_ power: what Ferelden’s leadership should be like moving forward, and what it will look like when the war is over.” 

“The king is not dying,” Loghain tersely denied. 

“At least consider it,” Urien pressed. “You and Arl Eamon are the king’s uncles, but Arl Eamon doesn’t presently grasp these recent events like anyone who experienced them. You have also ruled as regent in the king’s stead before.”

“Maric was mourning his wife’s _passing,_ ” Loghain dismissed. “I know not why I’m still listening to this. Take a squad of your remaining legion here and travel north with haste. Dismissed.” 

Urien sighed but saluted. “As you say.” He left. 

Loghain turned to Alistair and Elissa, and the two of them flinched under his thunderous gaze. “…Wardens. You shall travel with the Kendells legion as far as Lothering, and to the capital if necessary.”

Alistair was still blindsided, so Elissa worked up her voice. “N-No, Lothering is adequate. We must chase after the mages who fled the battle, likely for the Circle Tower.” Or the Orlesian border for protection, if they understood the weight of desertion. 

The war council nearly blew another gasket - at the news for some, reminder for others - but Duncan cut in calmly. “Go on and ready yourselves for departure. Maker be with you.”

“And you, Duncan,” the two wardens solemnly replied. Alistair’s lips twisted with emotion like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t resist Elissa leading him away, limping. 

The warden that had found Alistair now returned to being Duncan’s silent shadow, while Loghain gave out instructions for a watch guard, an organised search for survivors, and a clearing out of the battlefield so that the army could ready themselves for another assault. 

Carver moved to leave Loghain’s side, but the teyrn shot him a look that commanded he stay for a personal word. Carver reluctantly settled behind Loghain with restrained nervousness and checked himself for wounds while he waited. When there was a lull in soldiers frantically seeking clarification and instructions, Loghain suddenly lowered his voice and trained his eyes on Cailan’s wounds he was treating. 

“Ser Carver,” Loghain murmured. 

A radius of people would still be able to hear their exchange, but Carver leaned in anyway. “Teyrn?”

“What know you of the Grey Warden and the young Cousland?”

Alistair and Elissa? Carver paused, choosing his words carefully. Loghain wasn’t asking about their résumé - he wanted to know if they could be trusted. Even after suffering one of the fiercest waves of darkspawn to be seen in this blight, Loghain was still conscious of possible Orlesian threats, and so far as Carver understood it, the teyrn didn’t have any trusted sources accessible. At least half of them were dead, because Ser Cauthrien had chosen to guide Nails like the good commanding officer she was, and Carver had…

Carver had _insisted_ that Maric’s Shield secure the tower….

No. Focus.

“The Grey Wardens’ devotion to seeking and destroying archdemons is unquestioned and unmatched,” Carver replied. “I know little of Warden Alistair, but as an established member of the order, I expect him to be an example of such devotion. As for Warden Elissa….” Maker. The Hero’s personality could fall anywhere between lawful and chaotic, and Carver couldn’t even be sure if anyone was the fated Hero-to-be, if there would still be one. He swallowed thickly. “She is as skilled as can be expected of a Cousland. To put it plainly, Teyrn, I trust her to build the army and find the archdemon as commanded.” 

And no more. He couldn’t know for sure if such tasks would be accomplished without, for example, slaughtering all mages in the Circle, or spreading the curse of lycanthropy. 

Yeah. 

Carver sighed deeply. He straightened up when he realised that Loghain’s eyes had turned to him and sharpened into a piercing quality. 

There was a moment where Carver wasn’t sure Loghain would say anything. Then, the teyrn looked back at the unconscious king. 

“Are you injured?” Loghain asked. 

Carver blinked. “No, Teyrn. Merely bruised.” And wet and cold, but who wasn’t. 

“Good,” Loghain said. “You shall accompany the wardens on their mission.” 

Huh. “Huh?”

“See that they do not betray the people of Ferelden. Send a report through a runner every full moon.” 

“Of…which moon?”

“The _first_ moon,” Loghain remarked flatly. In other words, the planet’s closest satellite, and fastest. The Moon circled Thedas every month, while Satin circled Thedas every year. 

Carver hesitated. “If I may ask, Teyrn; did Ser Nigel survive yesterday’s battle?” 

“Him and the rest of the royal legion,” Loghain shared. “…Ser Carver, my command was not a request. Prepare to leave with the wardens.” 

“I…copy.” 

Maker watch over them all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Thedas’s second moon is named Satin. That is not a misspelling. Thedas’s holiday Satinalia is apparently based off of the Roman holiday Saturnalia. Who knew?
> 
> Also, Carver is inwardly freaking out, as one can imagine. In a way, it’s only fair with what he puts people through. However on the other hand, he is currently traumatised, and for plenty of reasons, some of which will be revealed in later chapters. This _is_ called “Someone Else,” and we’re only starting to grow more aware of the kind of person they had been before arriving to Thedas.
> 
> Meanwhile, the Hawkes are still largely ignorant of the activities of their youngest, fufu.
> 
> >:D

**Author's Note:**

> Please kudos and comment!


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